Forcyte Biotechnologies

Discover drugs that control how much cells "squeeze" to treat disease

Y CombinatorWinter 2021ActiveHealthcareDiagnosticsDrug discovery

What they do

Problem

Drug discovery lacks effective ways to measure and target abnormal cell contractility that drives mechanical diseases like asthma, fibrosis, and hypertension.

Solution

They use patented bioMEMS technology to quantify cell force/contractility and screen large drug libraries across human cell types to identify therapeutics that modulate cellular squeezing.

Who it's for

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies developing drugs for mechanically-driven diseases.

Founders

Ivan Pushkarsky

Founder

CEO and Co-founder of Forcyte which is based on my PhD work at UCLA with co-founder and PhD Advisor, Prof. Dino Di Carlo. Worked on tech since 2013, lead-authored multiple publications including Nature BME, and lead commercialization by winning SBIR grants, securing tech transfer and building early team.

Dino Di Carlo

Founder

Dino Di Carlo is a Professor, inventor, and entrepreneur with >50 issued patents. He is the Armond and Elena Hairapetian endowed chair in Engineering and Medicine at UCLA. His academic research has focused at the interface of micro & nanosystems, data science, and the ultimate limits of biology (single cells and molecules). Over the last 10 years, Dr. Di Carlo co-founded seven startup companies in life science research tools, diagnostics, medical device, and pharmaceutical industries.

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