Director Angela Gill Nelms leads a discussion with the Biolocity Oversight Committee and Biolocity interns, where the group evaluates each presenting team.
Last month, Portal Innovations Atlanta generously hosted Biolocity for the 2025 Biolocity Social and Full Pitch Day. These events marked the culmination of months of dedicated effort by ten teams. On May 7th, each team presented their final pitch to the Biolocity team, the oversight committee, and interns. After a week of careful consideration, five teams were chosen.
What Lies Ahead for These Five Teams?
The chosen teams will benefit from a year of invaluable mentorship from Biolocity’s team, including the Entrepreneurs-In-Residence (EIRs), as well as non-dilutive funding to support their research and commercialization efforts. Let’s take a moment to meet our exceptional five grantees…
CytMesh | Georgia Tech and Emory University
Team: A. Fatih Sarioglu, Ph.D. & Tobey J. MacDonald, MD
Brain and central nervous system tumors are responsible for the highest morbidity and mortality rates not only among pediatric cancers but all other diseases of children. Clinicians are in critical need of a non-invasive assay capable of detecting minimal residual disease and sensitive in predicting future metastasis, treatment resistance, and disease progression, so that the clinician knows early on, before the disease has spread, that more effective therapy is needed. The CytMesh team has developed a lab test that can extract very rare and otherwise undetectable metastatic circulating tumor cells present in the bloodstream and cerebrospinal fluid samples of cancer patients so that their tumors can be non-invasively and serially monitored to better guide clinical decisions.
Infiltrate Bio | Georgia Tech
Team: Susan N. Thomas, Ph.D.
The Cell Adhesion Chromatography Project aims to develop a platform that predicts and enriches for immune cells with superior tumor-infiltrating potential. Led by Dr. Susan Thomas, this technology models the tumor vasculature to identify cell products most likely to traffic to solid tumors—a key bottleneck in adoptive cell therapies. By enabling the adhesion selection of cells, this platform supports improved efficacy, manufacturing processes, and clinical translation of cell therapies. This innovation stands to transform how immunotherapies are developed and deployed in cancer treatment.
Infinite Loupe | Emory
Team: Anthony Law MD, PhD and Atharva Madiwale, MS
Infinite Loupe is a mixed-reality surgical visualization system that combines optical zoom, 3D spatial awareness, and real-time digital augmentation in a wearable platform. Our goal is to replace the operative microscope with something more immersive, portable, and intelligent, helping surgeons see better, operate more precisely, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.
OnCuRNA – Drug Delivery for Solid Tumor Cancers | Georgia Tech
Team: Nick Housley, PhD, DPT, Alisyn Bourque, and M.G. Finn, Ph.D.
Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancer among women. Unfortunately, existing systemic therapies have high toxicity and poor selectivity due to challenges in achieving high tumor delivery. To address this unmet need, the OnCuRNA team developed a new nanostructure (SANGs) that has shown great promise targeting and being retained in primary and metastatic ovarian cancer. This project focuses on realizing SANGs’ potential to improve chemotherapy delivery. The team will establish a versatile drug delivery platform and produce a library of SANG-drug combinations poised for advanced pharmaceutical development and commercialization.
RoboMateMR | Georgia Tech
Team: Yue Chen, Ph.D., Yifan Wang, Sam Wilcox, and Zhefeng Huang
RoboMateMR brings robotic precision to the MRI suite in an effort to improve the quality and access of cardiac MRI (CMR). CMR is an important tool in the diagnosis and monitoring of various heart diseases. Unfortunately, the quality and ability to perform effective CMR is threatened by the presence of cardiac implants, which produce artifacts that distort the image. RoboMateMR aims to enable the real-time correction of these artifacts through a robotically controlled shimming coil within the MRI scanner, enabling more effective treatment of cardiac conditions in patients with implants.
Biolocity is proud to support these visionary projects and their dedicated team members. These innovations exemplify our commitment to advancing biomedical technologies and improving healthcare outcomes. We look forward to the progress and breakthroughs these projects will undoubtedly achieve in the coming year.
Stay tuned for more updates on these exciting projects and other Biolocity initiatives. Together, we continue to break boundaries in biotech and pave the way for a healthier future.
Congratulations to all the 2025-2026 Biolocity awardees!
