Cellia Science announced today it has been awarded a $2M Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award supports continued development of the company’s novel deep-ultraviolet (UV) microscopy platform for real-time adequacy analysis of bone marrow aspirate smears.
This SBIR Phase II grant builds on Cellia Science’s successful Phase I results and will enable the team to optimize and validate its real-time, label-free imaging system. The technology is designed to help clinicians ensure that bone marrow aspirates are diagnostically sufficient at the time of biopsy, potentially reducing repeat procedures and accelerating diagnoses for patients with cancers and other hematologic disorders.
“Our goal is to give clinicians real-time insight into sample quality so they can make informed decisions at the bedside,” said Dr. Amy Powless, Principal Investigator of the grant. “This support from NIBIB will enable us to move from promising early results to a completed instrument that will reduce diagnostic delays and eliminate repeated procedures for patients undergoing bone marrow biopsies.”
Bone marrow aspirates are critical to the diagnosis, staging, and monitoring of hematologic conditions and cancers, but many aspirations are unsuccessful due to operator technique, dilution of the sample by blood, or underlying pathology. Unsuccessful aspirate samples necessitate repeating the procedure, yet assessing which samples are successful/unsuccessful (i.e., adequate/inadequate) remains a clinical challenge and is often not done until many days after the initial procedure.
Cellia’s platform will use deep-UV microscopy and image analysis algorithms to provide automated, objective assessments of smear quality within minutes. This point-of-care instrument is intended to improve the quality and reliability of bone marrow aspiration procedures and reduce delays in diagnosis and administration of treatment by enabling implementation of rapid, non-destructive sample adequacy assessment.
About Cellia Science
Cellia Science is committed to developing innovative diagnostic solutions that transform healthcare. The company was founded in 2021 to address unmet needs in hematology with their label-free deep-UV imaging technology. To learn more, visit celliasci.com
About VIC Tech
VIC Tech is a technology venture development firm that creates innovative new companies with world-changing science- and engineering-based technologies. VIC carefully selects and licenses technologies from universities and research institutions around the world, then partners technology entrepreneurs with VIC’s team of business and technology experts and allocates seed capital through the nationally comprised VIC Investor Network. VIC provides its portfolio companies with senior management expertise, extensive knowledge of technology startups, and proven processes to execute business strategies, including legal, financial, operations, marketing, capital acquisition, and technology management. For more information, please visit victech.com