Huge congrats, Ishita - amazing to see all your progress!
Thank you! Long way to go, but the ride is fun.
Readit Newsishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
Does pasteurization mess with this effect at all? Is raw milk better?
Hi! Pasteurization is not known to impact the structure or function of human milk oligosaccharides. But there are certain heat labile molecules that are impacted by it, and raw milk may retain those.
But there is a whole another story with raw milk and pathogenesis. If interested, check this article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32591006/
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
What happens if you discover an antibiotic/antimicrobial, your business succeeds in getting it used widely, and then the bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance?
Would that cause problems for the effectiveness of human milk in the general population?
(Also aside: perhaps fix the spelling mistake in the submission title!)
Great question: The goal is to dramatically slow down the process of resistance by choice of molecules that are rapid in activity, and creative compositions.
Milk, as a whole will remain to be very effective, like it has been during the millions of years of mammalian evolution. The entire constellation of molecules present in milk (and still many unknowns) will allow for continued functionality (with many exclusive and redundant roles).
That spelling error you pointed out..argh!!! But thanks.
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
Love the idea and mission! Best of luck Ishita!
:-) Thanks!
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
Nice to see your focus on women's health. The amount of women with recurrent/embedded UTIs and other issues close to the vagina is enormous.
I was quite surprised to find out there are thousands of women suffering decade long issues with no help or just enormous, health devastating doses of antibiotics (multi-year long therapies).
There's been so many approaches over the years (I watched the d-mannose just explode in sales when previously there was none available) but they do not seem to work completely.
There are also small research groups trying to figure out what's happening but there's still no widely accepted therapies. For example, doctors from most EU contries would never prescribe the amount of antibiotics required for multi-year therapies.
It was also quite surprising to me, as a male, when I got my first UTI, they gave me quite a lot of antibiotics, but then when my wife complains about it, she gets silly advice (get pregnant, drink multivitamins, it's probably not UTI [until she starts having kidney infections or urinates blood]).
Thanks! And I hear you, and recurrent & the secondary infections and the cyclic nature of it all are terrifying, to say the least, and the truth is also that in many cases, the recurrence is due to resistant bugs, that are just not eliminated by current care of Abx. Not to mention, some Abx when systemically administered, lead to major alterations in the gut microbiome as well. All in all, its not a good situation. I'm sorry to hear about your and your wife's infections, and hope we can contribute to reducing that burden somewhat for so many people.
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
Sounds interesting. If I'm understanding this correctly, these peptides target a wide range of 'bad' pathogens. Does that include things other than bacteria?
What benefits do these peptides have over other emerging therapies, such as phages?
Thank you! Yes, absolutely. Some of our candidate peptides impact bacteria across the spectrum and we are in the process of evaluating effects on viruses, specifically because the vaginal infections predispose patients to other secondary viral infections, and increased rates of HIV acquisition. In terms of benefits over other emerging therapies, we are focused on the safety aspect to the host and importantly, selectivity (differentiation between pathogenic and commensal bacteria), so that return to homeostasis is fast(er). Btw, I'm a fan of phages. But per our particular application, we belive it is best to move a bit away from "precision" as vaginosis and the umbrella of secondary infections are polymicrobial to a great extent.
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
It would be remarkable seeing this technology applied to restoration of the gut microbiome.
It seems to be involved in so many autoimmune diseases.
Heavy antibiotic use also seems to irrevocably damage the diversity of gut bacteria, leaving individuals susceptible to a lot of health complications later down the line.
Anecdotally, I know raw kefir and Visbiome (a well-studied probiotic) has been very helpful for the restoration of the gut microbiome.
Amen to that. Restoration of the gut microbiome is key to life-long health, starting with infancy, where colonization by the "right" beneficial bacteria is really important.
Infact, milk does a remarkable job with that. One example: diverse group of complex oligosaccharides present in milk and reaching the colon intact serve as food for the beneficial bacteria, allowing them to dominate the infant gut and present a wide array of benefits.
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
Once you discovered interesting peptides, please consider mass-producing them with a bioreactor e.g. of modified yeasts.
Milk will be phased out because its carbon footprint is too heavy, so even if it will probably not disappear short-term, you cannot regard it as eternally a plentiful resource, and even right now it is starting to get a stench of non-politically correct (veganism, etc).
Yep. For us, production and scaling is/will continue to be COMPLETELY independent of donor milk.
ishishah commented on Launch HN: Matrubials (YC S21) Milk-derived therapeutics for infectious diseases · Posted by u/ishishah
Interesting! Are you planning to market your product(s) as a drug, a supplement (or other less-regulated category), or both? (E.g., some fish oil is marketed as a supplement, while other fish oil is marketed as an FDA-approved drug [1].)
>Taken together, our founding team has ~100 years of combined experience in microbiology and ecology, food science and chemistry.
Minor nitpick: Without knowing the size of your team, this sentence is really hard to make sense of. Having 100 people with 1 year of experience each is a lot less impressive than having 10 people with 10 years of experience each.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by-prescripti...
Thank you for your comment. We are evaluating the best path forward based on safety dossier requirements for topical applications. Longer term, we envision that the product should be a prescription based.
Re your comment about founders' experience, we are four founders (three full time Professors, and a senior scientist), with academic and translational portfolio.