CellChorus and University of Houston Awarded $2.5 million STTR Fast-Track grant for innovations in A.I.

Up to $2.5 million in funding from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the NIH will be used to develop an integrated computer vision system for label-free analysis and focus restoration

PRESS RELEASE

HOUSTON, Texas — October 7, 2024. CellChorus®, the dynamic single-cell analysis company™, and the University of Houston today announced that the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded CellChorus and the University of Houston a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Fast-Track grant to advance the development of the Time-lapse Imaging Microscopy In Nanowell Grids™ (TIMING™) platform for dynamic single-cell analysis with label-free analysis. A two-year $2.1 million Phase II grant will begin after predetermined milestones are achieved under a $350,000 Phase I grant that is underway.

TIMING assays are powerful and versatile high-throughput in vitro assays that quantitatively profile cell-cell interactions on a large scale, especially the interactions of immune cells with target cells. The platform has demonstrated value in applications including designing novel therapies, selecting lead candidates for clinical trials, predicting response, and evaluating potency and viability of manufactured cells in immuno-oncology.

“By combining AI, microscale manufacturing, and advanced microscopy, the TIMING platform yields deep insight into cellular behaviors that directly impact human disease and new classes of therapeutics,” said Rebecca Berdeaux, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at CellChorus. “The generous support of NCATS enables our development of computational tools that will ultimately integrate single-cell dynamic functional analysis of cell behavior with intracellular signaling events.”

This STTR award will support the development of a scalable integrated software system capable of dynamic single-cell analysis on cells that are not fluorescently labeled. To increase the breadth of applications for translational medicine and other applications, there is a compelling need to make fluorescence channels available to integrate additional investigational probes concurrently. This label-free analysis will be based on new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models trained on tens of millions of images of cells and be optimized for fast, high-throughput single cell analysis by any customer without computational science backgrounds.

“This is an opportunity to leverage artificial intelligence methods for advancing the life sciences,” said Badri Roysam, D.Sc., Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor at the University of Houston. “We are especially excited about its applications to advancing cell-based immunotherapy to treat cancer and other diseases.”

The CellChorus TIMING platform is available through a commercial service in the CellChorus Innovation Lab located in Houston, Texas. Data from TIMING assays have been featured in more than 20 peer-reviewed papers across a range of cell types and therapeutic areas. Industry leaders have leveraged TIMING data in many different applications, including research, preclinical development, clinical development, manufacturing analytics, and the identification of biomarkers predictive of patient response. In addition to providing data on cellular movement, morphology, interactions, killing, survival and subcellular activity over time, the TIMING platform can provide data on individual cell phenotype and biomolecule secretion. Individual cells of interest can be retrieved for linked downstream analysis such as transcriptional or proteomic profiling.

This grant is provided by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 1R42TR005299. The content of this release is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

About CellChorus

CellChorus® is the leader in applying artificial intelligence to quantify the function and performance of cells over time to improve the development and delivery of novel therapies that improve patient care. The company applies Time-lapse Imaging Microscopy In Nanowell Grids™ (TIMING™) with neural network-based detection to identify how cells move, activate, kill, and survive at single-cell resolution. The patent-protected platform can link TIMING data and insights with information from other analysis modalities such as single-cell RNA sequencing to provide a comprehensive understanding of cellular function, state and phenotype. Please visit cellchorus.com for more information.

Source: CellChorus Inc.

Company Contact:
Daniel Meyer
CellChorus Inc.
TIMING@cellchorus.com