Xencor Co-Founder, Stephen Mayo, Presents Protein Design Automation Results at AAAS Meeting(BW Healthwire)–January 25, 1999—Stephen Mayo Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology, California Institute of Technology and co-founder of Xencor Inc., presented new results from Protein Design AutomationTM, the computational biomolecule design system, in a Science Innovation Topical Lecture, “Protein Design“ at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “Challenges for a New Century“. These results include recent work by Xencor scientists Peizhi Luo Ph.D. and Robert Hayes Ph.D. and colleagues in designing and testing next generation versions of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (filgrastim). By varying the amino acid sequence of filgrastim which currently generates in excess of $1 billion in annual sales for Amgen, Xencor was able to produce new molecules with enhanced stability and biological properties. Xencor has filed patents for these new products and is planning further development of lead candidates. Xencor was established in 1997 by Bassil Dahiyat Ph.D. and Stephen Mayo Ph.D, co-inventors of Protein Design AutomationTM, with the objective of commercializing this proprietary platform for accelerating biodiscovery. According to Dr. Dahiyat, chief executive officer and chief scientific officer of Xencor, “We are very excited about these results for our first product candidate which undeniably confirms our ability to create value added biotechnology products. Using Protein Design AutomationTM, we screen enormous protein sequence diversity in silico and rapidly find molecules that best meet our criteria for improved properties. This approach of computationally pre-screening leads dramatically reduces the cost and time associated with discovery of next generation proteins by limiting the number of experimental tests needed.“ Based in Pasadena, California, with advanced computational and molecular biology laboratories, Xencor (www. xencor.com) is developing new protein products, biomaterial libraries and proprietary software for accelerating biodiscovery for the pharmaceutical and industrial enzyme markets.