Claudia Penafuerte Diaz

CEO at Cura Therapeutics Inc.

Presenter

Dr. Claudia A. Penafuerte Diaz is an immunologist with 20 years of experience in cancer immunology and immunotherapy. In 2010, she obtained her Ph.D. degree at McGill University (Experimental Medicine Department). During this period, she worked under the supervision of Dr. Jacques Galipeau conducting several research projects aiming to potentiate the immune system response against tumor progression and metastases. Specifically, she developed several chimeric proteins with anti-cancer properties and published important studies as the first author in journals specialized in cancer immunology as well as obtained a US patent for Cura Therapeutics fusion protein technology.

In 2016, she concluded her post-doctoral studies at the Goodman Cancer Research Centre, in the laboratory of Dr. Michel L. Tremblay, an internationally recognized expert in the field of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTP) and signaling. During this period, she conducted two significant projects: the first one was to identify early blood biomarkers of cancer cachexia. This work provides the first indication in human that cachexia can be detected early and could potentially rapidly be treated with existing pharmacological means. In the second project, she developed a new approach to potentiate dendritic cell (DC) maturation and activation by modulating the activity of PTP1B and TC-PTP. Her findings led to a new generation of dendritic cell-based vaccines that is complementary to existing immunotherapies. This technology is so promising that it led to the establishment of a novel biotech company named Kanyr Pharma.

During her career, she has obtained a number of research grants, research awards, and fellowships including US Army Award, CIHR fellowship; High fatality cancer grant, PSVT University and Industry grant in Immunotherapy among others.