July 2025 Updates - The Bioentrepreneurs: Stanford, UCSF, Berkeley

Accepted into the 2025 MedTech Innovator (MTI) Cohort as one of 65 companies accepted from more than 1,400 applicants

Zach Rosenthal, CEO and Founder, will be presenting at the 8th Annual TPD & Induced Proximity Summit in Boston in the Discovery Track and would love to connect!

Hiring: Scientist, Induced Proximity Drug Discovery They're looking for a Scientist to help them build the future of induced proximity medicines. Apply directly on their website! 

Global presence: Cephla showcased Squid+ platforms at ELMI (Germany), MPS (Belgium), International Worm Meeting (Davis, CA), and MMC (UK).

New product alert: soft launched 4-slide brightfield and fluorescence scanner for slide scanning and Squid+ with Confocal nl’s AION line rescan confocal for organoids and expansion microscopy.

Global health programs: Cephla team member Pranav Shrestha spent 3 weeks in Liberia and Tanzania working with collaborators to test and collect validation data for Octopi for malaria diagnosis.

In the field: Co-founder Manu Prakash and two Prakash lab members are currently on a 5-week long research cruise departing from Woods Hole, MA studying organisms in the ocean from fresh plankton tows and carbon sequestration with several Cephla microscopes.

Course support: Cephla is proud to have supported the Embryology and Physiology Courses at MBL in Woods Hole, MA with two Squid+ confocal microscopes.

Community engagement: Cephla supported the AI + Lab Automation 24hr Hackathon by providing hardware (robotic arm and microscope) and training on Cephla systems.

Fast Company honoree: Cephla was named to Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas 2025 for its AI-powered diagnostic microscopes deployed in global health settings.

Launched DiffuseSandbox, a new app for researchers to design binders against protein targets of interest, along with DSG2-mini, their newest AI protein design model. They invite anyone with an interest in protein design to try the app and share feedback. 

Want to screen hundreds of thousands of antibodies derived from immunized B cells or a bispecific library? DropXcell is partnering with a leading CRO to offer a low-cost pilot screen to a select few customers. Limited time only. Contact their CEO Luke Blauch at [email protected] to learn more.

Fundraising and looking to raise $1.5M to reach key revenue milestones. Reach out at [email protected] to learn more.

Hired former Director of Research at Google DeepMind Aleksandra Faust as Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer

Recently announced its non-invasive, peptide-based drug delivery technology for dermatology. It has established the world's first peptide-drug conjugate platform for dermatology. With its targeted mechanism, this platform is applicable to several skin diseases including but not limited to skin cancer, alopecia, dermatitis, and hyperpigmentation. The company’s first dermatology pipeline in androgenic alopecia is in preclinical development. It converts an oral hormone modulator to a topical drug without systemic exposure using N1’s delivery technology, and the drug candidate has shown great efficacy and follicle drug exposure.

Just launched their flagship product - an AI knowledge platform built for life sciences and health teams. Designed as a trusted AI companion for all things health-related, Nextnet features their Copilot research assistants and their Explorer's connected search engine, all powered by the world’s largest semantic web of biomedical data

Released a short documentary piece: Bacteriophages Could Save 40 Million Lives by 2050

Covered in AP news: "Microbial DNA Testing Reveals What Dermatologists Can't See in Inflammatory Skin Conditions"

Interested in trying the MD-03 Protocol™, custom prescriptions, or other microbiome-supportive products? Use code BIO20ENTREPRENEUR at checkout and get 20% off. Offer expires July 31st

Excited to share that their first multi-omics circular-DNA integration pipeline is live, linking circular DNA to their cryptic microprotein products.

Updated their website

Released a new pre-print: Circular Genomes Can Switch Shape to Unlock Gene Expression - Without a Promoter!! Using high-powered molecular simulations, the team showed that nucleosomes can stabilize or destabilize extrachromosomal circular DNA, triggering structural "melting" that may allow them to be read and transcribed without traditional genetic signals like promoters. This could explain how these DNA rings—which exist in every human cell in a disease-states-specific manner, can silence genes, produce microRNAs, or even encode mysterious microproteins.

Released a Bedside Monitor Link (BML) to connect the Boppli Bedside tablet and the Philips monitor. The BML eliminates the need for bedside nurses to check an additional monitor, so there’s no disruption to their regular workflow. The Philips-approved connection enables:

Closed a syndicated $2.6M pre-seed round from 6 venture capital investors to explore the therapeutic potential of Protein Sculpting(TM) for neurodegenerative disorders. Former Stanford physician-scientist faculty turned biotech founder and CEO Neal Amin leads the wet lab and computational biology team at Sculpta.

CSO, Dr. Sam Banister, spoke on the “Breaking New Ground: Next-Generation Drug Development Programs” panel at the MAPS Psychedelic Science conference in Denver, discussing how to translate discovery-stage compounds into clinic-ready therapeutics.

Welcomed two new team members: Dr. Liam Adair (Medicinal Chemist) and Dr. Jack Nguyen (VP of R&D).

Will be presenting at the upcoming Gordon Research Conference on the Neurobiology of Psychedelics (Rhode Island, July 13–18).