Immuto Scientific, a biotechnology company advancing novel structural approaches to therapeutic target discovery, announced a target discovery agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) on January 29th, 2026. Led by Dr. Dustin Deming, Professor of Medicine at UW-Madison, the parties will collaborate in a multi-year research project aimed at discovering disease-specific surface protein conformations (SPCs), a new class of therapeutic targets believed to potentially enable safer, more precise treatments for solid tumors.

According to a company press release, UW-Madison will provide Immuto Scientific access to uniquely characterized, patient-derived organoid models representing microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer. Immuto will apply its high-resolution structural proteomics and AI-enabled analytics to interrogate conformational differences in cell-surface proteins between tumor and normal tissues, which are designed to reveal undiscovered druggable space of SPCs.

“Our work with Dr. Deming and the University of Wisconsin–Madison represents an exceptional opportunity to study colorectal cancer in a clinically relevant form,” said Faraz A. Choudhury, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO, Immuto Scientific, in the release. “By integrating patient-derived models with our structural surfaceomics platform, we can reveal previously unseen, disease-specific surface structures for drug targets that open new possibilities for therapeutic intervention.”

“Our collection of patient-derived colorectal cancer organoids enables exploration of tumor biology and therapeutic vulnerabilities in ways that traditional models cannot,” said Dr. Deming, who is also a member of the UW Carbone Cancer Center, in the release. “Through this collaboration with Immuto Scientific, we aim to identify new molecular targets that may ultimately improve treatment options for patients.”