Perspective Changes Everything
The Precursor Form and Growth Factor Activation
We developed a proprietary platform to discover and develop monoclonal antibodies that are able to modulate growth factors with extraordinary selectivity. Our antibodies target the latent, inactive forms of growth factors to selectively and locally modulate growth factor activity within the tissue microenvironment.
Growth factors and their receptors play fundamental roles in regulating cell growth and differentiation, which makes them highly attractive therapeutic targets. But selectivity has been an industry struggle.
The science around TGFβ is moving fast, but it remains a steep challenge to drug this target selectively… challenge accepted!
Scholar Rock co-founder and Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital professor, Timothy Springer, PhD, elucidated a new understanding of the mechanism of growth factor activation as it applies to members of the TGFβ superfamily, by solving a high resolution X-ray crystal structure of this precursor form of TGFβ1.
The discovery of the precursor structure coupled with an understanding of the activation mechanism allowed us to build a proprietary platform and to establish a differentiated pipeline of product candidates that could provide revolutionary approaches to treating serious diseases.
See how we target growth factors
The TGFβ Superfamily: A Closer Look
The TGFβ superfamily consists of over 30 protein growth factors that are similar in structure, categorized under the following subfamilies: TGFβ, growth differentiation factor (GDF), and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP). Each member of the TGFβ superfamily plays a critical role in the development and regulation of different tissues and organs.
See how targeting the TGFβ superfamily helps us develop new product candidates.
