{"id":198899,"date":"2025-10-14T07:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/198899\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T07:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:37:07","slug":"uconn-cancer-care-startup-goes-global-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/198899\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Cancer Care Startup Goes Global (and Beyond)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Armin Rad \u201819 Ph.D. and Leila Daneshmandi \u201820 Ph.D. set out <\/a>to found Encapsulate in 2019, they couldn\u2019t have foreseen where the next six years would take them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, their biochip-based cancer care company is taking on the world.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Encapsulate\u2019s proprietary technology allows for cancer tumors to be replicated on a biochip, outside the body. Initially, this technology was mainly used for testing various forms of chemotherapy \u2013 allowing clinicians to see how an individual patient\u2019s cancer cells would respond to different treatments, rather than subjecting the patient themselves to endless trials.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But now, as the tech\u2019s efficacy has been demonstrated through various clinical rounds, Encapsulate\u2019s ambitions are expanding.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company has completed two pilot clinical studies on chemotherapy for gastrointestinal cancers and is now planning to expand clinical studies for other forms of cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToo much of cancer therapy still follows a \u2018treat-and-wait\u2019 playbook; reacting to the disease and staying a step behind,\u201d says Rad. \u201cWe\u2019re shifting to a more rigorous, predictive, and comprehensive paradigm. Encapsulate\u2019s approach is proactive: predict and lead. Our platform allows us to stay ahead, rather than chasing the disease.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If successful, these goals would help advance Encapsulate\u2019s mission to revolutionize cancer treatment, providing doctors and patients with precise and personalized tools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

From Starting Up to Seed Rounds\u00a0<\/p>\n

In November 2024, Encapsulate closed its seed round<\/a> in an oversubscribed campaign, receiving a total of $1.8 million from various venture capital firms including Connecticut Innovations<\/a>, Blackwood Healthcare Breakthroughs Capital, and Ambit Health Ventures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company then rang in the new year celebrating placing second at the Entrepreneurship World Cup Global Finals<\/a> in Saudi Arabia, out of more than 16,000 applicants from 200 countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2025, Encapsulate also joined two prestigious international accelerator programs: CancerX<\/a> and MedTech\/BioTools<\/a> Innovator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These accelerators offer immense support in commercialization and company scaling, according to Rad. In Encapsulate\u2019s case, this will include connections to healthcare systems, investors, and influential players in the healthcare ecosystem.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re both first-time founders,\u201d says Daneshmandi. \u201cWe\u2019ve learned to surround ourselves with strong advisors and partners, and that collective expertise has been important in helping us grow Encapsulate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the National Science Foundation (NSF), Encapsulate received a further $1.25M in a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) phase II award <\/a>to advance their automated tumor-on-a-chip platform for personalized chemotherapy selection in pancreatic and colorectal cancers. This support will enable continued development, clinical validation, and scaling of Encapsulate\u2019s technology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Rad and Daneshmandi \u2013 both of whom hold master\u2019s degrees in global entrepreneurship from UConn, in addition to their Ph.D.s in biomedical engineering \u2013 the experience has been instrumental in pairing their scientific expertise with business acumen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve reached an exciting phase,\u201d says Daneshmandi. \u201cOur technology has been clinically validated. We\u2019re continuing to expand validation and are also now focused on scaling, building partnerships, and bringing this platform closer to patients.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To Infinity and Beyond<\/p>\n

Encapsulate is not only expanding their reach on the ground \u2013 they\u2019re also shooting for the stars. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In March and November of 2024, the company launched its technology on the International Space Station. Samples from six patients orbited some 200 miles above Earth, carefully cultivated and monitored in a portable, autonomous device called CubeLab, about the size and shape of a lunchbox. (Encapsulate partnered with the company Space Tango to develop the device.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

By studying tumors in space, each biochip provides insights that clinicians simply wouldn\u2019t have through traditional methods.<\/p>\n

Cancer treatment in space may seem a bit unorthodox, but the microgravity conditions onboard the ISS allow researchers to better understand and predict cancer behavior. On Earth, cultivated tumors-on-a-chip grow in a flat, 2D plane; in microgravity, they form 3D configurations more similar to how they would behave in a human body. This allows researchers to track how tumor cells behave over time, which is crucial for complex assays, such as evaluation of metastasis, or of tumor resistance to different therapies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Experiments with this tech have already shown intriguing results, according to reports from the ISS<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This year, the company received a $3.63M NASA InSPA Phase 1 grant<\/a> and a $1M NASA SBIR Phase I\/II award to develop its next generation of biochips, which is a Metastasis-on-a-Chip platform using microgravity environments aboard the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese experiments give oncologists a clearer view of how a patient\u2019s cancer may progress or respond to treatment,\u201d says Rad. \u201cBy studying tumors in space, each biochip provides insights that clinicians simply wouldn\u2019t have through traditional methods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AThis microscopic image captures how microgravity allows tumor cells to self-assemble into clusters, mimicking their behavior in the human body. (Courtesy of Encapsulate)<\/p>\n

Back on Earth, Encapsulate is embarking on a multi-site pancreatic and colorectal cancer study at UConn Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York City, and Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. These sites are enrolling patients with pancreatic and colorectal cancers whose tumors will be profiled using Encapsulate\u2019s system as they receive treatment. At the end of the study, real-world patient outcomes will be compared against Encapsulate\u2019s prognoses, allowing the company to further hone the technology\u2019s predictive capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The clinical studies at UConn Health were facilitated in large part by Joel Levine, MD, the founding director of UConn Health\u2019s Colon Cancer Prevention Program. Levine officially joined the Encapsulate team last year as the Chief of Creativity. He saw a need for bringing the medical technologies developed by UConn startups \u2013 many of them with \u201coutstanding potential\u201d \u2014 into greater harmony with the UConn Health system, including connecting startup founders with the expertise of clinical faculty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This connection allowed Encapsulate to develop an IRB protocol for a clinical study with human subjects at UConn Health who were undergoing chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. UConn Health gastroenterologists John Birk, MD, and Murali Dharan, MD, were instrumental in developing this protocol, which was written \u201cas part of more expansive research proposals that have been awarded over 4M dollars,\u201d according to Levine.<\/p>\n

\"ArminEncapsulate CEO and Co-founder Armin Rad presents on Encapsulate\u2019s signature technology. (Ethan Giorgetti\/UConn Health)<\/p>\n

Encapsulate \u201chas developed a platform that serves a range of important needs,\u201d Levine says. \u201cFirst, it has proven, to date, as highly accurate in predicting clinical response to treatment. As important is its design and use pattern \u2014 access and cost are important considerations, and this chip system will be able to be ordered by clinical oncologists as a \u2018routine\u2019 test conducted in their own hospital labs. This will speed time for decisions and decrease costs to patients.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The founders are eager to work with more healthcare systems across the United States as they continue to upscale their production.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the next two to three years, while we continue studies on the ground, in space, and across multiple clinical sites, we aim to prepare our first product for clinical use,\u201d Rad says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Back to the Blue<\/p>\n

While Encapsulate is now standing firmly on its own legs, Daneshmandi and Rad fondly remember the company\u2019s infancy as a UConn-supported startup, and they prioritize giving back to the UConn community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daneshmandi is now an assistant professor-in-residence of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in UConn\u2019s College of Engineering. She is also the Director of the Matthew and Margarethe Mashikian Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub<\/a> and the Co-Director of the Nursing and Engineering Innovation Center<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI teach courses and develop programs based on what I\u2019ve learned from my lived experience, and I think that resonates with students,\u201d says Daneshmandi. \u201cI share a lot of our personal experiences as well. I see my role mostly as empowering STEM students to step out of their shell and see entrepreneurship as a natural extension of their STEM training. I want them to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and realize they can take their ideas beyond the lab and translate them into real-world impact.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rad shares this philosophy. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at the UConn School of Medicine, where he develops courses focusing on clinical entrepreneurship. In addition, Encapsulate consistently employs 4-5 student interns from UConn, who gain valuable research and entrepreneurial experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe owe a great deal to the mentors we had at UConn. They challenged us to stretch, to take risks, and to grow. As our relationship has evolved, it\u2019s been a privilege to give back to the community that launched us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Armin Rad \u201819 Ph.D. and Leila Daneshmandi \u201820 Ph.D. set out to found Encapsulate in 2019, they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[84,4203,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-198899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}