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Searching for natural biomarkers is a promising idea, yet in practice it is often exceptionally difficult to find any traces of early-stage tumors shed into blood samples. Yet if traces are detected, where exactly in the organ is the tumor, so it can be destroyed?
Early tumors are often too small to image, or the images are unclear whether they are malignant or benign.
Earli is developing a radically new technique originally from Stanford University. Instead of searching, we force cancer cells to produce synthetic biomarkers that do not belong in the human body, which are then highly detectable and localizable in a PET scanner. We use biology for this, not chemistry, which allows for massive signal amplification. And the same technique also allows us to ultimately destroy the cancer.
A new era of Synthetic Biopsies is here.
Dr. Sam Gambhir’s wife Aruna had developed breast cancer, and survived it. Then his only 15-year old son Milan developed brain cancer. Meanwhile Sam was urgently searching for new ways to detect and treat cancer. As the founder of Stanford’s Canary Center of Early Cancer Detection, and head of Radiology at the Stanford Clinic, he was looking at natural cancer biomarkers in blood; they were promising, but proving elusive. So Sam flipped the problem on its head and came up with a radically new idea. Four years of lab work ensued to make it work in mice. The solution came too late for his beloved Milan. This deep loss gave Sam a sense of purpose against all odds.
On Thanksgiving Day, Cyriac Roeding, who had sold his previous startup, read Sam’s gripping story and contacted him. He had looked at 200 ideas to find the right next challenge on the intersection of the physical and engineering world. But he had not been as deeply touched by any other mission like Sam’s. The two met on a Saturday morning for breakfast at a local restaurant to talk. It turned out, they lived three minutes from each other.
Earli is looking for the world’s best in gene delivery, cell biology, molecular biology, translational biology (animal studies), clinical ops (human trials), manufacturing/CMC, and bio AI.
If that’s you, and you like big missions and hard work, *please* let us know.
Are you a potential partner, a journalist, or interested in joining
our team? Or perhaps you just want to say hi.
