IMUNON Expands Scientific Advisory Board with the Addition of Dr. Sachet Shukla

Renowned scientist will advise on the development of IMUNON’s FixPlas and IndiPlas modalities in immuno-oncology

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J., Aug. 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IMUNON, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMNN), a clinical-stage drug-development company focused on developing non-viral DNA-mediated immunotherapy and next-generation vaccines, announces the addition of Sachet A. Shukla, Ph.D. to the company’s scientific advisory board (SAB). Dr. Shukla is Assistant Professor, Department of Hematopoietic Biology and Malignancy (HBM), Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He joins current advisory board members Dan H. Barouch, M.D., Ph.D., John W. Shiver, Ph.D., and Luke D. Handke, Ph.D.

“We are honored to add Dr. Shukla to our scientific advisory board and are grateful that a scientist of his stature has chosen to work with IMUNON,” said Dr. Corinne Le Goff, president and chief executive officer of IMUNON. “We are eager to advance our FixPlas and IndiPlas modalities into universal and personalized cancer vaccines and have begun preclinical work in melanoma. Dr. Shukla will provide invaluable assistance as we advance along the development pathway and into clinical testing.”

Dr. Shukla is Assistant Professor, Department of Immunology, Division of Basic Science Research at MD Anderson, where he also serves as Computational Director of MD Anderson’s ECLIPSE Moon Shot Research platform, and Director of HBM’s Cancer Vaccine Program. He previously worked as Computational Lead Scientist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which he joined in 2008. Dr. Shukla received his Ph.D. from Iowa State University in Bioinformatics and Statistics.

Dr. Shukla’s research studies focus on elucidating the role of the immune system in cancer biology and the discovery of novel immunotherapeutic targets through development of immunogenomic approaches. He developed a computational method called Polysolver for accurate typing and mutation detection in the highly polymorphic human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes using next-generation sequencing data to address errors in genomic analysis of immune-related genes. He developed a computational pipeline for the rational design of neoantigen-based vaccines that has already been used in two first-in-man clinical trials at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The neoantigen prediction pipeline, in conjunction with the Polysolver tool, has also led to the identification of immunological correlates of several biological and clinical features in various tumor types. Dr. Shukla also worked in delineating mechanisms of response and resistance to immune therapies, particularly checkpoint blockade. His laboratory at MD Anderson is focused on antigen discovery and development of personalized immunotherapies. Dr. Shukla has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and has been recognized as one of the most highly cited researchers over the last decade as evidenced by multiple publications ranking in the top 1% by citations.