Yale multiplexes $100,000

Yale University is investing $100,000 in IsoPlexis, a spin-out from the institution. The investment is made via the YEI Innovation Fund, an early-stage fund managed by Yale University, Connecticut Innovations and First Niagara Bank.

IsoPlexis is based on research by Rong Fan, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and is developing a single cell immunoassay. Immunoassay is a biochemical test that measures the presence or concentration of a macromolecule (usually a protein) in a solution through the use of an antibody. Combined with the company’s software, this provides in-depth understanding of immune cells and cancer cells. The technology is patented, and Fan received a 2014 National Science Foundation Career Award for his work.

The company is run by alumnus Sean Mackay, a 2014 graduate of the Yale School of Management. He met Fan through the Technology Commercialisation Programme, run by YEI and the Office of Cooperative Research, which connects professional and graduate school students with patented faculty inventions to launch companies.

The company currently counts five employees, having grown through a 2013 Fellowship at YEI – a ten-week summer incubator at Yale for promising startups. The company will use the $100,000 investment to establish lab facilities, advance development of its product and attracting cancer research hospitals, pharmaceutical research groups and academic institutions as customers.

Sean Mackay, CEO, said: “The data we have gotten has provided a lot of confidence in the value we can provide to many drug developers, especially in cancer research. Our technology allows researchers to tease out indicators of patient response at the cell level, at a level of detail not achieved previously. It allows our partners to ask new and important questions, like: is a patient interacting with a novel therapy the way we thought he would?”