Professor Bruce Beutler Joins aTyr Pharma's Scientific Advi...( SAN DIEGO Aug. 3 /-...),Health

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- aTyr Pharma announced today that Bruce Beutler, M.D., Professor and Chairman of the Department of Genetics at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), has joined their scientific advisory board. An elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, Dr. Beutler was awarded the 2009 Albany Medical Center Prize, one of the largest and most prestigious awards for medicine in the US, in recognition of his contributions to our understanding of the immune system and the translation of that research into therapies that have reduced suffering for millions of patients with inflammatory disease. Dr. Beutler is the inventor of Enbrel(R), the prototype for the most successful class of biotherapeutics ever developed: recombinant inhibitors of TNF that are used to treat inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

aTyr Pharma's discovery candidates for anti-inflammatory and other indications are based on a novel class of naturally occurring proteins, resectins of tRNA synthetases. Jeff Watkins, CEO of aTyr Pharma, explains the significance of Dr. Beutler's involvement with aTyr Pharma: "The tRNA synthetases play a fundamental role in protein synthesis, but tRNA synthetases in humans have resected forms ("resectins") which provide additional essential activities, such as cell signaling. aTyr Pharma has discovered proprietary resectins with anti-inflammatory activities. Dr. Beutler is the pre-eminent figure in inflammation research, and we hope to capitalize on his experience to develop these proteins as biotherapeutics for treatment of inflammatory diseases as quickly as possible."

Professor Paul Schimmel of TSRI and co-founder of aTyr Pharma adds, "I greatly admire the scientific advances Dr. Beutler has made with inflammation in humans and his ability to turn his discoveries into therapeutics that have had a significant impact on
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