AccuCell Biotechnology
Company description
AccuCell Biotechnology builds in-vitro "organ-on-a-chip" devices, built on NASA-derived technology, that biomimic human tissue to make preclinical drug testing more accurate — targeting the roughly 90% of drugs that pass animal trials but still fail in human clinical trials. Unlike most existing organ-on-a-chip products, which are built for one specific tissue type, AccuCell's devices are designed to be tailored to the specific drug, disease, or metabolic process a given customer — contract research organizations and medical laboratories — is studying. The company won first place and $40,000 in seed funding at the September 12, 2024 Startup Texas SBIR/STTR Innovation Competition, a program run by the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC) in partnership with UTRGV's Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center (ECC) and Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) — the largest single prize awarded that year, out of $77,500 distributed across six startups.
Founder Ethan Atlan is a biotechnology student at Universidad Anáhuac Mayab in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, who founded AccuCell in January 2024 with co-founder Roberto Herrera, who leads engineering and manufacturing. The two had been working together for only about three months by the time of their May 2024 Startup Texas application, having come to the program through Expanding Frontiers' Entrepreneur in Residence Apprenticeship (EIRA) Program. As Atlan described the September 2024 win to the Rio Grande Guardian: "After spending months working toward this goal, everything came together perfectly at the end."
Founders: Ethan Atlan (Founder & CEO) and Roberto Herrera (Head of Engineering and Manufacturing)
Program: 2024 Startup Texas SBIR/STTR Innovation Competition
Founder LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ethanatlan