Fighting Cancer with Immunotherapy
As chief scientific officer and founding scientist at Elicio Therapeutics, Inc., Peter DeMuth (B.S. ’08, biochemistry; B.S. ’08, chemical engineering) leads a trailblazing effort to fight cancer, developing novel therapies that harness the power of the human immune system.
It was more than two decades ago that Peter DeMuth (B.S. ’08, biochemistry; B.S. ’08, chemical engineering) took his first deep dive into chemistry as an undergrad at the University of Maryland. Those years left an indelible impression.
“I still tell people stories about that time—it was my first experience really working in a research environment where we were coming up with ideas, testing them and analyzing the data,” he recalled. “Some of the strongest memories that I have are of the very big missteps or mistakes I made early on, and the surprising results. It’s the sea that you have to swim in as a scientist: to have an idea, then test it. Then to see it worked, wow. Or it didn't work, but we found other really interesting things that we weren’t even looking for. The visceral enjoyment that you get out of those moments is so memorable, and for me, it really crystallized the feeling that this kind of work was something I was very interested in.”
For DeMuth, those early lab experiences at UMD marked the first steps toward a groundbreaking career in drug discovery. Today, as chief scientific officer and founding scientist at Elicio Therapeutics, DeMuth leads a trailblazing effort to fight cancer, developing novel therapies that harness the power of the human immune system. Elicio’s lead investigational drug—showing promise in early clinical trials—is a cancer immunotherapy known as ELI-002, designed to target solid tumors driven by mKRAS, a mutated gene that promotes tumor growth in pancreatic and colorectal cancers.
“The phase one trial has been extremely encouraging. We saw good preliminary safety and tolerability,” DeMuth noted. “We saw in the Phase one that this therapy has the potential to induce the type of immune responses that we think could be effective in treating the cancers that we're trying to target, and we've also seen that the immune responses that were generated, the strength of them, as well as some of the qualities of those responses, were statistically correlated to better outcomes for patients—and in this case, it's how long patients go before they have a recurrence of their cancer.”
DeMuth sees a future full of possibilities for Elicio and for its novel immunotherapy platform.
“There's a whole universe of health applications, if you will, that this platform could create solutions for,” he said. “So, it's been very fun along the way to envision not only how we could make a difference in oncology, but how the technology itself could be further applied in other areas of health and disease.”
From LEGO-building to immune engineering
DeMuth grew up in Towson, Maryland. Big on LEGO building and science projects as a kid, he knew early on that his choice for college would be UMD.
“I was interested in engineering as well as the life sciences, and College Park had strong programs in both of those areas. And because of some very rigorous AP coursework in high school, I was able to pursue dual degrees in chemical engineering and biochemistry,” DeMuth explained. “I knew I wanted to have a foundation of knowledge in both the engineering sciences and the life sciences, so I could work at the interface of those two fields and generate technology to help people; that was always a big part of my own motivation.”
Thanks to the college credits he built up in high school, DeMuth moved quickly into research. Working in Professor Philip DeShong’s lab in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, DeMuth got his first hands-on introduction to drug development.
“Working with Dr. DeShong was centered on drug delivery-focused objectives—we were trying to use material science and chemistry to precisely deliver medicines that could be useful for cancer and other applications,” DeMuth recalled. “That was really the most significant undergraduate research experience that I had at Maryland. I was able to publish a paper, go to a scientific conference and participate in various on-campus activities surrounding research, which were very enriching.”
DeShong was beyond impressed by DeMuth’s abilities.
“Peter was born to do research,” DeShong explained. “He did not ‘work’ in the lab. To him, research was play, and he was great at it. What he did not know, he learned. When an experiment failed, he was willing to learn from the failure and move forward. I did nothing more than provide the environment for him to thrive; he did all the hard stuff. I am honored to have had Peter as a member of my lab.”
Big biopharma or small startup?
After graduating from Maryland in 2008, DeMuth pursued a Ph.D. in biological engineering at MIT, where research fellowships with the National Institutes of Health, including a program in the infectious disease vaccines and diagnostics division at Novartis, deepened his interest in biotechnology.
“It gave me another opportunity to see how research in the industry setting was done, and it gave me some footing to decide where the trajectory of my own career would go. Would I stay in academia? Would I move into an industry role? I think that was super helpful in giving me clarity on where to pursue the scientific interest that I had, because those are two tracks that are quite distinct, both highly valuable, but the actual day-to-day experience of them can be quite different,” DeMuth noted. “It also made me more certain that rather than working in a large biopharma environment, I wanted to pursue a role in a more innovative startup or small biotech.”
At MIT, much of DeMuth’s research focused on immunotechnologies that could set the stage for new disease-fighting therapeutics. One of the technologies developed by the research team at MIT became the scientific foundation for Elicio Therapeutics’ technology platform. Launched as a small, ambitious startup in 2013, it has continued to grow ever since.
“When I started at Elicio, I was doing lab work—the biology, the material science and the chemistry, and then as the company moved into progressively later stages of the process of drug development, my role evolved into what it is today,” DeMuth said. “We've done a lot of work to reach a point where our immunotherapy platform could become the foundation for many different products that could target forms of cancer that have very common mutations. And because the platform itself is built around the idea of getting drugs to lymph nodes where the immune response is orchestrated, we believe it could also be used in applications for infectious disease vaccines or autoimmunity. I’m very proud of the tremendous science that we've been able to push forward and the team we’ve assembled. Together, I think we've been able to innovate in a really significant way.”
DeMuth’s disease-fighting work is motivated by more than scientific discovery—it’s personal, too.
“I think scientific curiosity was probably more of a dominant factor early on, but like many of us, I do have family who have been impacted by cancer, and as I live longer, that has become a more important motivation. I had two grandparents who passed away from cancer, one before I was born, another when I was very young,” he explained. “I've seen the way that those diseases can impact on a personal level, and that’s certainly a big driver behind everything I do.”
At Elicio Therapeutics, the goal is to create a pipeline of new treatments to fight some of the most challenging cancers. For DeMuth, making a life-changing difference for patients is what this work is all about.
“As we've made progress in the clinic, there's a feedback loop that develops where you start to see patients come onto your trials who are treated, some of whom have very good outcomes. You begin to see the ways that these new therapeutics could be used to treat patients in ways that have not been possible before and gain motivation to build on these results to improve the outcomes for many, many more people,” DeMuth explained. “I think that cycle is really enriching and reinforcing—you can start to see the positive impact, and it makes you want to do so much more. It’s really why I’m here.”
