VLST Corp., one of the first startup companies seeded by Seattle biotechnology incubator Accelerator Corp., has nailed a whopping $55 million in new financing to boost its drug-development pipeline.:
"..... the company is looking to the logic of viruses -- and how they evade or block the immune system of their host -- to develop drugs for treating immune system and inflammatory disorders such as lupus, arthritis, multiple sclerosis or diabetes.

The company has identified 70 viral genes that suppress or modulate the immune system, and further identified how eight of those genes interact with the immune system. Now VLST hopes to produce drug treatments by mimicking the activity of those genes.

'The virus has done tens of thousands of years of evolution,' said VLST Executive Chairman Steven Gillis. 'We're harnessing the product of that genetic evolution to come up with a new class of therapeutics.'"