Over 300 startups have spun out of the University of Utah thanks to the research done by U faculty, staff and students. The U’s reputation for entrepreneurship and support for translational research has even attracted professors who founded companies while at other research institutions.

Mei Yee Koh, an assistant pharmacology and toxicology professor and CEO of Kuda Therapeutics, is one of these professors. Kuda Therapeutics is based off research conducted at a previous institution, but moving to the U allowed her to establish her own lab while continuing work with her company.

“I felt like this position description was a perfect fit for me, because they wanted someone who does cancer research and wanted to come to a comprehensive cancer center and does translational research,” Koh said.

Koh joined the U in 2017 and has continued her cancer research both in her lab at the U and at her company, Kuda Therapeutics. Her research focuses on how oxygen levels and more specifically hypoxia—or low oxygen— impact cancer cells. “This low oxygen changes cancer cells,” Koh said. “It makes them more resistant to treatment and more likely to spread and kill the patient.”

Koh discovered one of these cancer cells’ weaknesses was their ability to use iron. “Cancer cells need more iron than regular cells because they're growing more rapidly. But having too much iron is a detriment,” Koh said. “We know that cancer cells have chronically too much iron. It's like addiction to drugs or steroids. It gives them their power, but it also gives them their weakness.”

Kuda Therapeutics, which Koh founded to gain access to SBIR grants, identified a molecule that was able to block a cancer cell’s response to hypoxia by interfering with its ability to use iron. To compensate, the cancer cells then take up too much iron and die through a mechanism known as ferroptosis—or death through iron overload. Since this exploits the already elevated iron levels in cancer cells compared to normal cells, Koh hopes this will result in a promising therapy to selectively kill cancer cells.

Koh’s lab at the U, on the other hand, is working to understand the connection between the molecule’s ability to both block the hypoxia response and interfere with iron utilization.

Koh was recently recognized as the 2023 University of Utah’s Investigator on the Rise at the Innovation Awards for her research at the U and at Kuda Therapeutics. Balancing and excelling in both aspects of her research career isn’t easy, Koh said.

“It is really hard,” she said. “The reason I do it is because as a scientist, if you are lucky, you experience the joy and satisfaction of discovery, but you often do not have the pleasure of seeing anything tangible come out of it apart from your big paper and the kudos of your peers in the field. Worthwhile as these endeavors are, my big thing is, I would like my research to be useful to patients.”

With Kuda Therapeutics and the funding from SBIR and other grants, she’s able to pursue that goal. Because Kuda Therapeutics is based on technology developed outside the U, the Technology Licensing Office was not part of the licensing process for her intellectual property, but Koh said the office was helpful in connecting her to individuals and advisors who could help support the company. As Koh continues research at both the U and Kuda, TLO aims to strengthen the relationship between the two and collaborate to commercialize her technology.

Koh also found support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and its Utah Innovation Center. The center reviewed her grant applications and provided feedback before submission.

Watch a Utah Innovation Center video about Kuda Therapeutics  

Despite the challenges, Koh remains extremely passionate about her research and the idea of doing something completely novel. “We performed a drug screen, and we found something new about oxygen and iron in cancer that nobody knew before, that could make a difference to patients. That's really exciting because everything you do, everything you find is new, and you add to a knowledge base that was not there before,” she said. “It's a joy and a privilege to be able to do this.”