A standout session at our recent GDS Life Sciences Summit was a keynote address featuring purple M&M’s and the remarkable research being done to cure some of the world’s most complex diseases.

Industry leaders from all over North America attended the digital summit to learn from each other and hear new insights from experts and innovators in the sector. One of those innovators is Dr. Michael Tolentino, Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer at Aviceda Therapeutics. Dr. Tolentino’s life’s work is to cure blinding diseases and cure cancer. He says the key to doing it lies in simplification.

As I listened to Dr. Tolentino tell his story, I could feel the inspiration rising. Get inspired with us, as we take you through the fascinating story.

Dr. Tolentino radiates positive energy as he shares his learnings.

“The only conclusion is that we will be able to cure cancer.”
– Michael Tolentino, MD, Chief Innovation Officer & Co-Founder, Aviceda Therapeutics

A family legacy

Dr. Tolentino has been dreaming about curing blindness and stopping cancer since he was a child. His father was a pioneer in the field of retinal disease, which are disorders that damage the part of the eye called the retina, and often lead to blindness.

Dr. Tolentino explained how his father would bring his research home with him, and before the younger Tolentino could even attend a PG-13 movie, he pitched right in.

“I come from an Asian family. So, if your parents run a Chinese restaurant or run a laundromat, you end up working there,” he said, smiling. “In line with the culture, I ended up working in the family business since I was probably around 8 to 10 years old.”

A simple analogy

It was during this time, helping his father work on retinal detachment, a serious and potentially blinding condition the American Academy of Ophthalmology describes as the retina lifting away from the back of the eye, that Dr. Tolentino learned the power of simplifying a complex problem.

“When I was working in my father’s Lab at Harvard Medical School as a 10-year-old,” he recalled, “my father simplified the problem for me by analogizing the retinal detachment to wallpaper falling off the wall.”

He watched, and even helped, as this novel view of a detached retina led to his father developing a new surgery to better treat the condition. He likened the method to pushing the wallpaper (the retina) back onto the wall (the eye).

Having witnessed the success of this way of thinking, Dr. Tolentino says he set about solving more medical problems with the same structured approach, “take a complex disease; simplify that problem with an analogy; solve the analogous problem; and then implement the solution with the latest in technology.”

Simplify to innovate!

• Take a complex problem
• Simplify it with an analogy
• Solve the analogous problem
• Use the latest technology to implement that solution for the complex problem

In time, Dr. Tolentino was indeed able to use this framework to successfully treat other medical problems, including wet macular degeneration, a condition the National Eye Institute says impacts 11 million people in the US alone, and can quickly lead to vision loss.

“Simplifying the problem,” said Dr. Tolentino, “has really led to several treatments for wet macular degeneration that is saving vision around the world.”

The purple M&M analogy and Aiko, the dog that chews

The next challenge was solving dry macular degeneration, a related vision-impairing condition the National Eye Institute says often progresses to wet macular degeneration. Even if you’re familiar with the disease, I’m going to bet you’ve never heard the disorder described the way Dr. Tolentino describes it. Come along for the purple M&M analogy (and get to know a bit about the physician’s dog, too!).

“The underlying problem of dry macular degeneration,” explained Dr. Tolentino, “was actually the immune system ‘eating’ the retina. I called it a form of inflammatory ‘cannibalism.’ Inflammatory cells were ‘eating’ what they were not supposed to be eating—just like my dog, Aiko, who chews on everything and anything that she sees.”

So, how would you correct a dog that likes to chew? “My solution for Aiko’s problem,” he said, “was to train her what to eat, and to spray something called ‘No Chew’ on the objects that I did not want her to eat.”

Applying this rationalization toward the human body and thinking of the immune system as having ‘taste buds,’ Dr. Tolentino made another comparison. “Every cell in the human body looks like a peanut M&M,” he declared. “They have a ‘peanut’ core, called the nucleus; a ‘chocolate’ surround, called the cytoplasm; and a ‘sugar coating,’ called the glycocalyx.”

A slide from Dr. Tolentino’s presentation

Here’s where the M&M comparison gets interesting. According to Dr. Tolentino, cells have some ‘sugar coatings’ that taste good to immune cells, and some ‘sugar coatings’ that taste bad.

“Healthy cells are coated with sialic acid, or ‘sugar,’ which tastes bad to immune cells, and actually makes them lose their appetite,” said Dr. Tolentino.

However, he said, the other ‘sugars’ taste good to immune cells, which encourages the ‘eating’ of the retina.

“So, knowing this,” he said, “we developed a ‘purple M&M,’ which signifies the sialic acid-coated nanoparticle that makes the immune cells lose their appetite. If they do not devour the retina, then the retina becomes happy, and sees better.”

With this purple M&M development, Dr. Tolentino and his co-founders launched Aviceda Therapeutics, a late clinical-stage biotechnology company.

“We are testing these purple M&M’s in the eyes of patients with dry macular degeneration,” shared Dr. Tolentino. “We have just finished part-one of our phase-two clinical trials and have seen some remarkable results.”

M&M’s & cancer

You may already be thinking: if the purple M&M’s protect cells we don’t want eaten, what about the cells we do want devoured and destroyed? That’s exactly where the Aviceda team is working today.

“Cancer cells cover themselves with the same purple sugar coating,” said Dr. Tolentino. “What this does is it makes immune cells lose their appetite so the cancers can evade immune destruction. They grow, uncontrolled, and kill the patient.”

Applying the same principles of simplifying to innovate, Dr. Tolentino shared the areas he and a team of world-renowned researchers, who he lovingly calls ‘M&M chefs,’ are working on.

“The two ideas that I have come up with are: one, to remove the purple sugar so that the cancers become appetizing again to immune cells,” he said. “The other way is to train the immune cells by blocking their taste buds, so they will eat the cancer.”

I asked Dr. Tolentino, if the solution really is “simple,” why haven’t we cured cancer yet?

“Mainly because of technology,” he answered. “Technology hasn’t caught up to our ability to manipulate the ‘taste buds’ of immune cells.”

But he’s hopeful it’s on the horizon.

“Cancer is a complex problem, but if you look at it from the perspective of a peanut M&M, and you are working with the world’s foremost M&M ‘chefs,’ the only conclusion is that we will be able to cure cancer,” he confidently stated. “So, let’s cure cancer.”

Watch Dr. Tolentino’s full presentation here: