While a postgrad at Stanford University , Dr. Thomas Schall discovered a unique class of small molecules that could attract regulatory immune cells; working in tandem, they seemed to form a system that regulated the flow of immunocytes throughout the circulatory system, acting, in Schall's words, as the "traffic cops of the circulation superhighway". Dubbing the class of molecules "chemoattractant cytokines," or "chemokines," Schall went on to discover RANTES, a chemokine whose over-expression is implicated in endometriosis and other autoimmune diseases. Pursuing chemokine research further in R&D positions at Genentech Inc. and later Schering-Plough Corp. 's DNAX Research Institute , Schall decided in early 1997 that the potential applications of chemokines, chemokine receptors, and related technology were broad enough to warrant the full-time focus of a stand-alone company. Securing funding from research products firm Techne Corp. , among other investors, he founded ChemoCentryx Inc. in November 1997.
Many chemokine activity-related genes have been discovered through the Human Genome Project and corporate genomics efforts; however, the identification of...