NCI awards SBIR Phase I to PACT & Health

The award was given for the development of anti-cancer agents and radiation modulators screening devices.

PACT & Health of Branford, CT, USA has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract by National Cancer Institute (NCI) for the development of I-PARTS integrated platform for anti-cancer radiation therapeutics screening. This is to design and establish an integrated platform to screen anti-cancer drugs using high-throughput clonogenic assay System (HTS). NCI, an institute of National Institute of Health (NIH) leads and supports cancer research across USA to advance scientific knowledge and help people to live longer and healthier. The SBIR is one of NCI’s engines of innovation for developing and commercializing novel technologies in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. In addition to funding, NCI contributes tremendously to mentoring and networking for small businesses with next-generation cancer technologies.

Dr Rao V L Papineni, CEO PACT & Health, and Principal Investigator of the project points that I-PARTS, integrated platform for anti-cancer radiation therapeutics screening combines the recent advances in cell culture automation, microfluidics, and high-speed image analysis with the high-thoughput X-ray irradiation. The grantee PACT & Health at Precision X-Ray Unit partners with Co-PI Dr. Sylvain Costes at NASA-Ames in this pivotal project. Commercially, I-PARTS, an integrated instrument is designed and developed to discover new cancer drugs required for combined cancer therapy. This instrument and the technology is miniaturized such that cancer drugs and radiation treatment can be tailored for individual patient, the ongoing goal towards personalized medicine.