Jun 29, 2026
Sten Sörensen, CEO of Cereno Scientific, discusses work on epigenetic modulation to treat the rare disease Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, a progressive and fatal condition for which current treatments primarily manage symptoms. Core pathological processes of PAH include inflammation, fibrosis, and the growth of muscle cells in the pulmonary artery. Cereno's approach aims to be disease-modifying by targeting these conditions with HDAC inhibitors to regulate the production of essential proteins, potentially preventing or reversing disease.
Sten explains, "We are working with something called epigenetic modulation. You know what DNA is, the map for our body and the protein production in our cells, that's the map. But the map needs guidance to produce essential proteins that are important for the body's function. The regulation of the production of essential proteins from the DNA map is regulated by epigenetic modulators. So sometimes that regulation can go wrong, and then it needs to be adjusted. And we are working with molecules with a mode of action that has epigenetic modulation. And these molecules are called, in this case, HDAC inhibitors."
"Well, the rare disease pulmonary arterial hypertension has a number of characteristics that propel the disease forward, and for the patient, that is very detrimental. And as we know, pulmonary arterial hypertension mostly affects women, and in the end, the disease is that you actually pass away. So you die normally of right heart failure, and the survival time is approximately seven to seven and a half years from diagnosis. So it's a very severe, rare disease, and current therapies are more directed to relieve symptoms than actually act to slow down, halt, or even reverse this detrimental progression of the disease."
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