Ditto Bio

Patients with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease suffer from a hyperactive immune system attacking the body. Many existing drugs come from natural sources like plants, snake venom, fungi, and bacteria, but the page suggests one major natural source remains underexplored: parasites. Viruses, ticks, and worms have evolved for millions of years to calm and redirect the immune system of their hosts, a capability that has not been systematically mined for autoimmune drug discovery. Without a systematic way to identify and evaluate these parasite-derived proteins, their therapeutic potential for autoimmune disease goes untapped.

Ditto Bio uses an AI platform to identify proteins from viruses, ticks, and worms that could be developed into treatments for autoimmune diseases. The company states it has identified thousands of promising proteins with therapeutic potential, each a candidate for a new autoimmune drug. The founding team combines expertise in host-pathogen interactions with computational and AI methods, and describes running the full design-build-test-learn cycle, pairing experimental work with computational discovery. The approach is framed as an extension of a long history of nature-derived drugs, drawing a parallel to known examples like taxol from Pacific yew or captopril-type drugs from snake venom, but applied specifically to parasite biology for autoimmune indications.