2017年，12岁的劳伦·埃格利特（Lauren Eglite）激动地和父亲埃里克（Erik）一起观看了圣母大学（巴黎圣母院）的橄榄球比赛，尽管她患有严重的花生过敏，需要时刻保持警惕。

She was even more excited when the stadium’s brand-new video board aired an NBC 为故事而战 about Basar Bilgicer’s research into blocking peanut allergens from triggering immune system overreactions. 她问父亲——一位制药公司的高管，也是圣母大学商学院的校友——这是不是一个机会，可以帮助她解决从小就困扰她生活的疾病。

“I remember to this day her looking at that screen and turning to me,” 埃里克·埃格利特博士 said. “She said, ‘Daddy, can I meet him? 我真的想做点什么。’ This kid actually did that.”

这是一个大胆的要求，但在埃格利特医生联系后，比尔吉瑟没有犹豫。 The 巴黎圣母院 professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering invited the whole Eglite family to his 实验室 and explained his complex research in overwhelming detail.

这段视频同时播放给两名合适的观众，这一巧合带来了巨大的共同利益。 将近八年后，Bilgicer和Eglite合作成立了一家名为Artin Immunology的公司，旨在将Bilgicer的花生过敏九博体育研究变成一种重磅药物。

Lauren在高中的两个夏天在Bilgicer的实验室当过实习生，现在是圣母大学的一年级学生。 She hopes to take part in the ongoing research that can help bring the allergen inhibitor to market within five years, as well as expand this unique platform to other immune system overreactions—from penicillin to shellfish to asthma.

“I’m very thankful and humbled to have had this opportunity,” Lauren said. “I know not everyone is able to be involved in researching their own cure, and I’m really happy just to be a small part of it.”

靶向过敏抑制剂

Bilgicer是一位科学家，在巴黎圣母院经营着一个繁忙的实验室，Eglite是一位拥有医学和法律学位的制药商人。 当Eglite一家参观他的实验室时，双方很快意识到建立伙伴关系的好处。

“I’m not trying to fool anybody,” Bilgicer said. “I’m not a businessman. 这就是为什么我让埃里克和其他阿廷人在船上。 But I also want to make sure that I’m overlooking to see that the company is moving towards where it’s supposed to.”

Bilgicer的担忧并非毫无意义。 几家制药和风险投资公司已经联系他，希望购买他的抑制剂技术，他通过巴黎圣母院申请了这项技术的专利。 However, he said these companies occasionally buy patents just to eliminate any potential competition—a “catch and kill” strategy.

他还亲眼目睹了科学家们经营公司。 他说，他在哈佛大学的博士后九博体育研究导师乔治·怀特塞兹（George Whitesides）在一个远没有今天复杂的环境下创办了多家公司。

“There is no one way that companies will be started,” Bilgicer said. “There are multiple different paths. 我的很特别，因为我有一个搭档看了那个广告，很有兴趣和我联系。 我告诉他我有兴趣把这个商业化。 He jumped on board because I intended to take it to the clinic all along—once I proved that it works and it’s safe.”

Bilgicer方法的独特之处在于，他的抑制剂只针对潜在的过敏原，阻止它与免疫系统中引起过度反应的抗体结合。

目前的解决方案有两种形式。 一种是在病人开始出现症状后使用的，这些症状包括皮肤发痒、荨麻疹、喉咙发紧，甚至过敏性休克。 抗组胺药、皮质类固醇和肾上腺素等药物只能在反应开始后使用。

“There’s another treatment, basically knocking down a whole component of the immune system, which makes the patient more susceptible to other types of infections—it’s a shotgun method,” Bilgicer said.

“Our treatment is a surgical precision tool that identifies the molecules that are responsible—only those molecules that are responsible—for peanut-specific allergies. Hopefully the patient will be protected against accidental exposure to peanuts without any compromises on their immune system activity, which is necessary for healthy life.”

花生过敏的生活

An estimated 6 million Americans cope with peanut allergies of varying degrees, according to 食物过敏九博体育研究和教育. 在过去的几十年里，花生过敏的患病率迅速上升，从1999年不到1%的美国成年人增加到最近的3%左右。

劳伦·埃格利特从没想过要加入这个高级俱乐部。 她在芝加哥北部郊区长大，记得小学时不得不坐在没有花生的桌子旁。

“It can be kind of humiliating, having your friends leave you to eat alone,” she said. “I remember in second grade they’d give us these placemats (to show food servers who is peanut-free). 你得把它们放在你的午餐托盘上。 You feel very singled out for it, and it can be hard kind of navigating that growing up.”

埃格利特博士说，她的父母必须保护她，直到她长大到足以理解危险的程度。 他说，虽然她从未出现过真正的过敏反应，但她的喉咙肿胀，呼吸困难了好几次。 他们给她开了苯海拉明，但从来不用肾上腺素笔。

“It’s almost total avoidance and it is just living very scared,” he said. “Is she going to accidentally eat it? 高中时，她去参加夏令营。 他们把花生酱混在整个早餐里。 She can’t eat anything.”

这不仅仅是过度保护父母。 劳伦的叔叔娶了一个女人，她的第一任丈夫在飞机上吃了花生后死亡。 他窒息而死，因为没有药物可以阻止他的免疫系统过度反应。

像他们这样的家庭必须检查他们购买的每一个杂货，以避免将潜在的过敏原带回家。 他们必须在生日聚会前打电话给朋友，问他们会吃什么。 他们对每一份订单都要询问服务员，避免去那些可能用花生油烹饪或交叉污染食物的餐馆。

“You’re hypersensitive about this because one time and you could be dead,” Dr. Eglite said.

劳伦现在带着苯海拉明和EpiPen，但埃格里特医生说，让一个更小的孩子把针扎进自己的大腿，这太过分了。 她记得最近吃了一份凯撒沙拉，她不知道里面有坚果。

“You don’t realize until you start to feel your throat and your tongue swell up,” she said. “You just know, and it sucks. You have to leave that situation.”

将过敏药物推向市场

Bilgicer和Eglite博士有着截然不同的背景，作为一家公司的联合创始人，这两种背景相得益彰。

Bilgicer在伊斯坦布尔长大，主修化学，1999年来到美国塔夫茨大学攻读博士学位。 在哈佛大学，他九博体育研究了生物分子，并对抗体产生了兴趣，抗体可以对抗病原体，但有时会把人体自身的细胞误认为是外来入侵者。 Now in McCourtney大厅, he came to 巴黎圣母院 in 2008 because he bought into the goal of “being a force for good.”

A Chicago native, Eglite went to Loyola University Chicago with the goal of becoming a medical malpractice lawyer like the hero of the movie 意外的人生. 从医学院和法学院毕业后，他意识到这个领域不符合他的期望，于是转向制药行业。 他曾担任创业公司和跨国公司的总法律顾问和公司官员，帮助16种fda批准的药物获得监管批准。

Eglite also earned an MBA from 巴黎圣母院 and has been involved in programs including 尊重 and the 哈珀癌症九博体育研究所. 他欣然接受了与比利塞合作的机会。 “I listened and had great interest,” he said. “I was thinking, commercially, we can pull this off.”

任何药物的批准都要经过多个步骤。 Bilgicer and Eglite brought in 马克卡普兰 of the Indiana University School of Medicine as a third company founder for his experience and resources in clinical trials. 卡普兰在获得一家投资银行的资金方面也发挥了重要作用 福尔克医学九博体育研究信托奖。

这一步对于保持对公司的控制权至关重要。 “If you get money from a venture capitalist right in the beginning, you end up giving more of the company away,” Bilgicer said.

After publishing how his research worked in the 实验室 in 2019, Bilgicer and Artin Immunology, a division of 阿廷生物科学, spent several years proving it worked safely and effectively in a more complex environment—a live animal.

在印第安纳大学医学院，九博体育研究人员开发了“人性化”小鼠，这是一种用人类免疫细胞取代小鼠免疫系统的过程，因此小鼠将模仿人类的免疫反应。 They announced 成功的结果 in 2023.

下一步是在政府监管的机构进行非人类灵长类动物试验。 最后，涉及人体的临床试验有三个阶段，这要复杂得多，成本也高得多，这正是Eglite擅长的过程。 该公司希望在今年晚些时候启动。

“Typically, you don’t have efficacy in phase one, only safety, but we’re going to try to do that,” Eglite said. “If we can get some results there, we’ll be able to raise, I think, a lot of money.

“Our plan is to run through phase two and show one of the big pharmaceutical companies our safety and efficacy. 一些大公司可以从那里接手（第三阶段），因为我们的小公司不打算推出药物。 You need hundreds of sales reps and all that goes with that.”

目标是在2026年启动第二阶段，并在2029年之前将药物推向市场。 If all goes well, Eglite speculated that the company, and 巴黎圣母院 as patent holder, could have a blockbuster drug worth “an enormous amount of money.”

他说，西北大学和斯坦福大学等其他大学已经证明了这条路线是可行的。 He plans to run company offices out of the 创新园创意中心. “巴黎圣母院 gave us a wonderful license agreement,” he said. “巴黎圣母院 will do very well. I can’t ask for a better partner.”

过敏护理的未来

Eglite和Bilgicer主要关注他们的过敏原抑制剂对劳伦这样的病人的作用。 最近，Bilgicer得知他的女儿对太阳过敏。 她必须非常小心地使用防晒霜。

Bilgicer不确定他抑制过敏原的方法对他女儿是否有效。 但他知道该平台在其他自身免疫性疾病方面具有广泛的潜力。 他已经为虾开发了抑制剂，并发表了一篇关于青霉素抑制剂的论文。

“Right now, we’re looking at asthma,” he said. “For most asthma patients, it’s actually dust mite molecules, so we’re looking at developing inhibitors for dust mites.”

他说，今后，他的实验室可能会九博体育研究更复杂的免疫疾病，如类风湿关节炎、狼疮和1型糖尿病。

“We developed screening methods for what we call nano allergens to break down the interacting molecule allergens to their smaller components,” he said. “We can investigate and evaluate one component at a time using non-allergens. Once we identify the molecules that are really immunogenic, then we can develop inhibitors that are precise and specific to the allergen.”

Eglite said that while he can “mostly” discuss the science with Bilgicer, he also has to pitch the potential to big pharma executives: “I like to call it gold, glory, and the greater good.”