CatchMe Therapeutics develops a novel class of precision medicines that targets the epitranscriptome machinery.
During the past decade, the emerging field of RNA posttranscriptional modifications (epitranscriptomics) took a big leap forward. New discoveries are being made every day, and the ability to manipulate different components of the epitranscriptome machinery holds great potential for new therapeutics. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) has been identified as the most abundant mRNA modification. The m6A modification is processed by a complex network of proteins that add (writer), remove (eraser), and bind (reader) to mRNA molecules carrying this modification. The importance of m6A RNA modification is well demonstrated in different human pathologies, including cancer and viral infections. Many studies have shown that m6A, and the proteins that are involved in its processing, plays an important role in various cancer types like lung cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, glioblastoma, renal cell carcinoma and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). While the m6A machinery robustly regulates the initiation, propagation, survival, and replication of many cancers, currently there is no drug or any available therapy targeting this machinery.