Catherine founded Kylix Bio to accelerate the translation of promising discoveries into clinical therapies for rare neurodegenerative diseases. Kylix was established following the diagnosis of Illingworth’s young son with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 4C (CMT4C), a rare inherited neuropathy with no treatment. Confronted with the gap between scientific discovery and clinical development in rare disease medicine–and the unacceptable reliance on rare disease families to fund Phase I trials–she founded Kylix to bridge that divide. Before entering biotechnology, Illingworth was a scholar of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Her academic research explored philosophical and theological questions surrounding human identity, embodiment, and the nature of healing in the Christian intellectual tradition. These questions continue to inform her perspective on the emerging possibilities and ethical imperatives of genetic medicine.
Catherine founded Kylix Bio to accelerate the translation of promising discoveries into clinical therapies for rare neurodegenerative diseases. Kylix was established following the diagnosis of Illingworth’s young son with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 4C (CMT4C), a rare inherited neuropathy with no treatment. Confronted with the gap between scientific discovery and clinical development in rare disease medicine–and the unacceptable reliance on rare disease families to fund Phase I trials–she founded Kylix to bridge that divide.
Before entering biotechnology, Illingworth was a scholar of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Her academic research explored philosophical and theological questions surrounding human identity, embodiment, and the nature of healing in the Christian intellectual tradition. These questions continue to inform her perspective on the emerging possibilities and ethical imperatives of genetic medicine.
