Lou Hawthorne, founder of NaNotics, introduced a groundbreaking platform called NaNots, a new class of medicine designed to adsorb soluble factors driving diseases and aging. These molecular sponges target disease drivers in blood and tissue fluids, offering innovative solutions to longstanding medical challenges.

Key Points:

Lou Hawthorne's NaNot platform offers a transformative approach to treating diseases by targeting soluble factors. It demonstrates superior efficacy, safety, and adaptability compared to traditional methods, with potential applications across a range of conditions.

• Revolutionizing Disease Research: Traditional medicine has focused on cell-targeting drugs, but NaNots shift the paradigm by addressing soluble factors that directly mediate diseases. This approach rebalances dysregulated systems without targeting cells.
• Design of NaNot Technology: NaNots are biodegradable, modular constructs engineered to target soluble factors. Key components include a capture agent for specificity, a shield to avoid cell engagement, and a stealth coating to evade immune detection.
• Rapid and Effective Action: NaNots act as molecular sponges, capturing targets and clearing them via macrophage phagocytosis. They achieve 95% target depletion within five minutes post-injection, far surpassing existing methods like apheresis.
• Applications Across Diseases: The platform shows potential in treating inflammatory diseases, cancer, and sepsis by neutralizing key soluble drivers like TNF, soluble PD-L1, and IL-6R. NaNots’ modular design allows quick adaptation to new targets.
• Preclinical Successes: Studies demonstrate NaNots’ efficacy in cancer models, with fivefold improvements in metastasis-free survival compared to current therapies. They also remodel tumor microenvironments, enhancing immune responses.
• Advantages Over Antibody Drugs: Unlike antibody drugs, NaNots deplete soluble factors without affecting their membrane-bound forms, avoiding unintended side effects. They also prevent target accumulation and anti-drug antibody responses.
• Expanding the Potential of Immunotherapy: NaNots enhance immune responses by activating multiple steps in the cancer immunity cycle, surpassing the capabilities of checkpoint inhibitors like Keytruda, which only act on one step.
• Future Directions and New Targets: The platform is expanding to address diseases linked to IL-11 and IL-6, with plans to tackle aging-related inflammation and fibrosis. NaNots promise to target these factors without disrupting beneficial pathways.