This week, we have a conversation with Vidmantas Šakalys, CEO of bioprinting company Vital3D Technologies, and a chat with Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, CEO and co-founder of AOA DX, another of the companies that attended the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in Chicago recently.

Interview times:

01:47 Vital3D Technologies

20:46 AOA Dx

Vital3D Technologies

Lithuanian company Vital3D Technologies is developing 3D bioprinting technology aimed at bridging the organ supply-demand gap by specializing in the 3D printing of human organs.

As the company progresses on its journey towards printing organs like the kidneys, via printing human skin, Vital3D Technologies has made practical, ready-to-use applications along the way - one of them being organoid application for drug testing.

Bioprinting shows particular promise in cancer treatment by producing tumour models from patient-derived cells. With instances of cancer on the rise globally and the mean cost of cancer drug development estimated at $4.4bn per drug, bioprinting has the potential to alleviate some of the many stressors currently affecting the healthcare system.

We have a conversation with the company’s CEO, Vidmantas Šakalys.

AOA Dx

AOA Dx, an early-stage biotech company developing the first test to diagnose ovarian cancer in symptomatic women, and Sonrai Analytics recently announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the development of AOA’s multi-omic liquid biopsy test.

The partnership aims to advance the development of the diagnostic test through a multi-omic biomarker validation strategy.

AOA Dx is transforming cancer detection with its proprietary GlycoLocate platform, a first-of-its-kind, multi-omics liquid biopsy that integrates gangliosides, lipids, proteins, and clinical data using advanced machine learning.

The company’s lead test, AKRIVIS GD, is designed to diagnose ovarian cancer in symptomatic women, where no other diagnostic currently exists.

Our conversation is with Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, CEO and co-founder of AOA Dx.

To get in touch with guest suggestions, please email jim@deeptechdigest.com

This week, we’re talking to some of the companies that attended the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in Chicago.

We have interviews with Microbiotica, OneCell Diagnostics, and Tessellate Bio.

Interview times:

01:55 Tessellate Bio

17:02 OneCell Diagnostics

44:04 Microbiotica

Microbiotica

Mat Robinson, SVP Research at Microbiotica, is one of our guests.

Microbiotica presented new data at AACR about the microbiome and the mechanism of action of MB097, a clinical-stage drug candidate being evaluated in combination with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) in patients with advanced melanoma.

MB097 comprises nine different species of gut commensal bacteria, all linked to positive CPI response in multiple clinical studies. Microbiotica has developed in vitro human systems using primary immune cells to investigate how gut bacteria modulate the immune response to cancer.

Three of the MB097 strains induce dendritic cells to produce high levels of IL-12, which in turn stimulates Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes and NK cells with potent tumour cell killing activity.

OneCell Diagnostics

OneCell Diagnostics, an AI-powered precision oncology company, announced a new product for the US biotech and pharma market and a new partnership before the AACR meeting,

OneCell launched OncoIncytes, a multi-modal cancer diagnostic panel that integrates multiple types of data, including circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumour cells (CTC) at single cell resolution, RNA transcriptomics, and proteomics (150 proteins at the single cell level).

The company said the technology is transforming cancer research, drug development, patient selection, and therapy response monitoring with unprecedented granularity.

OneCell is also joining forces with BioSkryb Genomics, a pioneer in single cell multi-omics, to co-develop and commercialize next-generation single cell multi-omic solutions.

Researchers can now isolate CTCs at one in a billion, and characterize DNA, RNA, and protein targets from these individual single cells with unprecedented precision, significantly accelerating the development of advanced therapies, including antibody-drug conjugates.

On the podcast, we had a conversation with Mohan Uttarwar, CEO and co-founder of OneCell Diagnostics.

Tessellate Bio

Boehringer Ingelheim and Tessellate Bio have partnered to develop first-in-class precision treatments for people with hard-to-treat cancers. The partners will focus on developing first-in-class, oral precision treatments for people living with cancer.

The collaboration aims to develop treatments targeting tumours dependent on alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) for their growth. This feature is present in 10-15% of all cancers and is associated with poor prognosis and a lack of targeted therapies.

Tessellate Bio has developed inhibitors of an undisclosed target that plays a key role in enabling the uncontrolled growth of ALT positive cancer cells. Blocking this target has been shown to lead to increased DNA damage, replication stress and ultimately tumour cell death, specifically in ALT positive tumour cells. A benefit is that healthy cells are not affected because they have no dependency on this mechanism.

Andree Blaukat, CEO of Tessellate Bio, tells us more.

To get in touch with guest suggestions, please email jim@deeptechdigest.com

This week on the podcast, we have a conversation with Elise de Reus, the co-founder of Cradle, a biotech startup that is revolutionising protein design, and a chat about improving hospital operations with Proximie’s CEO and founder, plastic surgeon Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram.

Interview times:

01:55 Proximie

21:40 Cradle

Proximie

Proximie has built the only cloud OS for intelligent operating rooms. With 800 operating rooms across the US and UK utilizing Proximie, the company is rapidly growing its US footprint leveraging its connected surgical platform to drive operational efficiency.

With Proximie, medical devices and operating rooms are connected, smart, and secure. Information flows in and out of the OR in real time.

Proximie's platform, with extended AI agents, provides real-time data across the perioperative surgical pathway, including advanced scheduling modules. The company is growing and securing market share in the competitive US healthcare landscape, fuelled by strategic partnerships with medtech leaders like Olympus and Distal Motion.

Cradle

Cradle is a biotech startup that is revolutionising protein design. It leverages genAI to optimise proteins for animal-free food, better medicines, and sustainable materials.

Machine learning-generated sequences are transformed into physical proteins.

Despite being founded in 2021, Cradle, founded in 2021, closed a $73m series B last year, and already works with more than 20 biotech companies, including industry giants like Novo Nordisk, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, Novozymes, and Grifols.

Cradle’s AI prioritises language-based models over structure-based ones, enabling better predictions of protein function, stability, and degradation in real-world conditions.

its AI-designed protein binds to its target 8 times more tightly than a leading cancer therapeutic. It accelerates early-stage research for clinical trials by 1.5x to 12x.

To ensure accuracy, Cradle also operates a wet lab to generate real-world validation data.

To get in touch with guest suggestions, please email jim@deeptechdigest.com