Story by Ann Y. Robinson
Wes Wierson is working to cure cancer in dogs.
The founder and CEO of LEAH Labs, Wierson (‘13 microbiology, ‘18 PhD molecular cellular and developmental biology) and his team are the first to successfully put pet dogs with lymphoma into remission with a pioneering cell therapy.
Building on that achievement, the lab is starting a new company, VelociTx, using similar tools to fight cancer in humans.
From a scientist…
A microbiology course and a chance to work in a plant pathology lab at Iowa State University led Wierson to become a scientist.
“I became fascinated by the potential of the gene editing tools I was being introduced to,” he says.
After an internship in private industry, he returned to Iowa State to work in the lab of Maura McGrail and Jeffrey Essner, professors in the Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology. There, Wierson invented GeneWeld, a method to precisely insert new DNA into genomes, giving cells functions they did not naturally possess.
Essner encouraged his advisee to forge his own entrepreneurial path. The idea interested Wierson, and he signed up for the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps training program.
…to a CEO
Just before defending his thesis, Wierson flew to San Franciso to meet with the startup accelerator Y Combinator and pitch his ideas for a canine cancer therapy. He won seed money and a crash course in startups.
Around that time, Wierson was told his beloved border collie, Layla, had cancer. Fortunately, she was misdiagnosed, but the experience strengthened Wierson’s resolve to save dogs from debilitating, expensive chemotherapy and surgery.
He founded LEAH Labs on a shoestring, seeking grants and pitching to investors along the way. A few challenging years later, the team’s lymphoma treatment is ready for its fourth clinical trial, in collaboration with several leading veterinary oncologists.
“I’m not surprised at what Wes is doing,” Essner says. “He was always striving to translate his findings into the real world, even from the early stages of his graduate work.”
LEAH Labs’ therapy reprograms human T immune cells, which live in all of us. The T cells seek out and recognize cancer, “like a lock and key,” and destroy it.
“Using human cells means the treatment can serve as a potential ‘translational’ model for humans,” Wierson says. “That has always been part of our vision – to help dogs and their humans.”
Or, as the LEAH Labs website says, “fighting cancer at both ends of the leash.”