Prof. Furst has started four companies since participating in the 2021-2022 cohort

Seia Bio enables the production, storage, and transport of previously impossible-to-produce microbes. Seia has a proprietary, self-assembling nanocoating that forms on microbes and protects them from environmental stresses. These coatings protect every microbe evaluated from stressors including spray drying and freeze-drying, UV light, high temperatures, freeze-thaw cycles, and high humidity, among others, with up to seven orders of magnitude increased viability post-processing as compared to unprotected cells.

Helix Carbon is at the forefront of combating climate change through an innovative approach to carbon capture technology, a pivotal element in our planet’s environmental strategy. The central challenge addressed is the high energy demand in converting carbon dioxide into useful materials, a process that currently results in most captured carbon being simply stored underground, a method both unsustainable and financially unstable due to fluctuating carbon credit markets. Helix’s breakthrough technology drastically lowers the activation energy required for carbon dioxide conversion, making it economically feasible to decompose it into valuable components without additional atmospheric harm.

Ouroloop is a next-generation chemical manufacturing company using biology, chemistry, and a little bit of modern alchemy to transform landfill-bound plastics and textiles into high-purity commodity chemicals — helping to close the loop on sustainability without compromising on quality, scalability, or economic sense. We’re headquartered in Texas, and we’re focused on real-world impact: starting with PET and polyester, building the lowest-cost supply chain we can, and turning today’s “waste” into tomorrow’s raw materials.

The fourth company is focused on disposable diagnostics that could be adapted to detect a variety of diseases, including cancer or infectious diseases such as influenza and HIV.

We are creating a fundamental shift in how clinicians and patients can screen for, detect, and diagnose breast cancer, especially since early detection is the key to increasing survival rates. In our work, we are developing technologies to make ultrasound lower cost and usable by less skilled operators at home.

Spheric Bio is building out a platform technology that combines the benefits of minimally-invasive procedures with the benefits of patient-specific additive manufacturing. With this technology, we aim to generate customized soft implants directly at the target tissue site in the patient’s body while avoiding adverse procedural complications and local tissue trauma. As a target application, we are particularly interested in intracardiac defects because 1) they are difficult to reach and 2) they tend to display high patient-to-patient variability. We believe our approach will enable on-the-fly production of intracardiac implants that match each patient’s unique anatomy in a same-day minimally-invasive procedure.

This project’s aim is to develop genomic assays for the accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorder (BD) and to provide high-throughput methods to screen and select individuals for likelihood of successful treatment with one or more therapeutic regimens, based on their genetic sequence, essentially providing personalized treatment regimens for BD, and for predicting their success at the molecular level.

MultiLogEx aims to bring high-throughput, super-resolution imaging to drug screening and discovery. Our technology platform enables visualization of nanodrugs as well as their phenotypic consequences at high-resolution across thousands of cells. MultiLogEx solves a critical workflow and resolution bottleneck that helps scientists get safer medicines to patients faster.

Our technology represents a new paradigm in cancer therapy where drugs or drug combinations are being delivered locally, and in a controlled manner, right at the tumor site. This enables realizing a therapeutic window, enhancing treatment outcomes, and eliminating side effects that are associated with systemic delivery of drugs. This is particularly of interest in tumors where biological barriers to delivery limit the most potent drugs from reaching their target to eliminate cancer.

At NeuroBionics, we are redefining the human machine interface. We have developed soft, minimally invasive implants that can seamlessly interface with the human body. Our implants are made of flexible, multifunctional fibers which are nearly as small as a human hair. These fibers can deliver drugs, sense, and stimulate the biological environment, offering a versatile platform technology for therapeutics, diagnostics, and monitoring. Our implants can be delivered into the body through a minimally invasive outpatient procedure, where they can wirelessly communicate with external devices. Our technology has gone through extensive pre-clinical validation in the brain, muscles, nerves, and spinal cord of small and large animal models over the past decade.

Thyroid cancer is the sixth most common cancer in women and its prevalence is increasing exponentially over time. Moreover, only a small portion (~5%) of thyroid nodules are malignant. Diagnosis of malignancy with conventional fine-needle aspiration biopsy and cytological molecular testing has substantial limitations and surgical removal is required in nearly all cases for definitive diagnosis. Cohen’s research group has developed a technology that can obtain point-of-care, rapid, and objective mechanical signatures of tissue properties. This technology can enable improved pre-operative thyroid nodule diagnosis and can substantially decrease the number and complications of unnecessary surgeries. Testing of ex-vivo human thyroid tissue is expected to begin at MGH in the coming months.

Kristin Knouse is assistant professor in the Department of Biology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She develops tools to investigate the molecular regulation of organ injury and regeneration directly within a living organism with the goal of uncovering novel therapeutic avenues for diverse diseases.