BrightEdge - American Cancer Society

Cerula Care is a behavioral health company dedicated to supporting individuals with advanced chronic conditions. The organization offers virtual care services that include care management, coaching, and psychiatry. Its focus lies in addressing mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, substance use disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. By providing these tailored services, Cerula Care aims to enhance the behavioral health outcomes of its patients, ensuring they receive the necessary support to manage their conditions effectively.

TippingPoint Biosciences is focused on developing therapeutics that address diseases linked to defects in DNA packaging, including various cancers and neurodegenerative disorders. Utilizing a drug discovery platform, the company aims to identify innovative treatments that specifically target unique genome packaging states associated with these diseases. This approach not only facilitates the treatment of cancers but also supports the development of stem cell therapies by addressing the underlying issues of dysfunctional genome packaging. Through its efforts, TippingPoint Biosciences seeks to advance medical care and improve patient outcomes in complex genetic conditions.

Summary SyzOnc aims to develop therapies for solid tumor patients who have no effective treatment options. Our strategy leverages AI tools, the Cell Painting assay, and unique cell-based models of the tumor microenvironment to identify promising therapeutic leads. We believe our deep knowledge and passion for treating these cancers with major unmet need will yield next generation targets and therapies. Founders Founded by experts from the Broad Institute and UPenn, including Anne Carpenter, T. S. Karin Eisinger, and Ashley M. Fuller, our platform integrates world-class cancer and machine learning research. Our strategy leverages AI tools, the Cell Painting assay, and unique cell-based models of the tumor microenvironment to identify promising therapeutic leads. We believe our deep knowledge and passion for treating cancers with major unmet need will yield drugs that reverse their dismal survival rates. Strategy Our platform integrates curated machine learning techniques, Cell Painting, and specialized bioassays of the tumor microenvironment. This strategy yields high specificity, substantial cost savings, and flexibility to model multiple cancer types. Our next generation target identification approach is to use public and proprietary data to identify multi-modal cancer targets, which are critical to three key areas of tumor growth simultaneously (1. cancer cell proliferation, 2. extracellular matrix regulation, and 3. immune evasion). This strategy leaves behind the traditional and ineffective point solution approach, which chooses targets based on a singular function (generally proliferation). SyzOnc takes a systems level approach, far more appropriate to address the complexities of solid tumor biology. Our first target (“Program 1”) is the Hippo pathway an untapped biological pathway, specifically altered in cancers such as soft-tissue sarcoma, that controls cancer cell expansion, matrix deposition, and T cell function. Our strengths are our deep knowledge of and passion for easing the burden of Hippo pathway-dependent cancers, which lack targeted therapies and show some of the most dismal survival rates. Next steps We have launched our laboratory space at the B+labs incubator in Philadelphia. We are currently funding in mid-2024 to reach milestones over 2 years to advance our our current platform and program work, and to expand our platform for drug development to additional cancer types.

CellCentric Ltd. is a biotechnology company based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, focused on developing innovative cancer therapeutic products. Established in 2003, the company specializes in small-molecule inhibitors that target p300 and CBP proteins, as well as a deubiquitinase enzyme closely linked to prostate cancer. This enzyme modulates the androgen receptor pathway, which is critical in addressing resistance mechanisms encountered with existing prostate cancer treatments. CellCentric's therapies aim to treat various cancers, including castrate-resistant prostate cancer, lung cancer, bladder cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer. By targeting specific pathways and mechanisms, CellCentric seeks to provide effective treatment options for patients with challenging cancer types.