If all the ideas coming out of her lab were her own, Rebecca Martin, Ph.D. jokes, “we’d have a pretty short run here.”

And so researchers like her rely on graduate students like Anuj Tharakan. “He came up with this really good idea that took my lab in a new direction,” says Martin, an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the VCU School of Medicine.

The idea: to modify immune responses that underpin allergic reactions and other immunological disorders, leading to longer term reversal of disease.

And there are a host of diseases caused by the immune system. Some, like allergies and asthma, attack external particles and are treated with steroids or medications that shut down the immune response. But those therapies have side effects, such as greater susceptibility to infection, which can be life-threatening.

Tharakan and Martin want to use their small molecule drugs to reprogram immune responses that cause disease, without the side effects of broad immune suppression.

Their research is focused on dendritic cells, which make the immune system’s decisions on how or whether to respond to particles and proteins, thus triggering reactions. They have shown that their drug candidate, PT-002, can alter dendritic cell function to treat allergic diseases in a more targeted manner than existing therapies. Their initial drug would treat allergic asthma, with other disease states to follow.

Tharakan and Martin formed a company, Pleros Therapeutics, which is further developing the drugs. Tharakan, who is completing VCU’s M.D./Ph.D. program, has his eyes on treating an even broader range of conditions that aren’t normally thought of as immune-related.

“Any disease state in humans, things that we don't really think of as immune conditions — like strokes or heart disease — they all have an immunological basis,” he says. “There's absolutely a role for modifying immune responses in many of these diseases. It could benefit a lot of different conditions.”

Martin didn’t originally see Tharakan’s idea leading to a startup, but decided to form one after companies they approached for partnerships had competing interests.

TechTransfer and Ventures has given the researcher-founders feedback on their positioning and milestones to hit to keep progressing.

“The contacts that TechTransfer has provided us have been completely invaluable,” Martin says. “Lawyers for establishing resources, their own entrepreneurs-in-residence…we wouldn’t have started a company if it hadn’t been for them.”