Non-dilutive federal funding will support preclinical and clinical work validating red blood cell-bound tumor DNA as an early detection biomarker for non-small cell lung cancer.
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 29, 2026 — Senticell, Inc. (“Senticell” or the “Company”), a biotechnology company pioneering a new class of liquid biopsy built on red blood cell (RBC)-bound nucleic acids, today announced it has been awarded a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award will fund the project “RBC-Based Liquid Biopsy for Early Detection of Tumor DNA in Resectable NSCLC,” conducted with the University of Pennsylvania as a sub awardee to the STTR award.
“This STTR award is an important validation of our science from one of the most rigorous review processes in government funding, and it provides grant funding to support research that complements the funding we’ve received from our recent seed financing,” said Neha Shah, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Senticell. “It allows us to move faster on the specific data package that matters most to clinicians and regulators: showing that RBC-bound tumor DNA can meaningfully improve early detection of lung cancer.”
Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and no liquid biopsy test is currently available to adequately guide clinical decisions in early-stage disease. Research shows that red blood cells actively bind and retain tumor-derived DNA, offering a potential biomarker that may be more stable and abundant than the circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) found in plasma-based assays. The STTR award will support two research aims: the first, using murine tumor models, will characterize how RBCs acquire and retain tumor DNA over time relative to plasma ctDNA; the second will extend these findings clinically by evaluating RBC-based mutation detection in 100 patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
“Early in my career, I was told that red blood cells would not be a fruitful area of investigation. But over the past two decades, my research at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania challenged that assumption and revealed that red blood cells interact with and retain nucleic acids in ways we did not previously understand,” said Dr. Nilam Mangalmurti, whose discoveries have given rise to the technology that serves as the foundation of Senticell. “Our preliminary work suggests red blood cells may retain tumor DNA longer and in greater abundance than plasma. This grant lets us rigorously test that biology, first in animal models and then in a cohort of 100 early-stage NSCLC patients, to determine whether it can become a reliable diagnostic tool.”
The findings from this NIH Phase I STTR award are intended to lay the scientific and clinical groundwork for a multi-center clinical validation study and to support a regulatory strategy toward FDA marketing authorization, with the ultimate goal of enabling earlier, more accurate detection of lung cancer to guide treatment decisions.
About Senticell
Senticell is a biotechnology company developing a new class of liquid biopsy diagnostics based on red blood cell (RBC)-bound nucleic acids. Its vision is to build the definitive RBC-based diagnostics platform, one that starts in oncology but ultimately extends across disease areas where earlier, more sensitive detection can change how patients are treated. Founded on research pioneered at Penn Medicine, Senticell’s platform is designed to unlock disease signals that plasma-based liquid biopsy often cannot detect, with initial applications in oncology and infectious diseases. Senticell holds an exclusive, worldwide license to its foundational RBC platform from the University of Pennsylvania and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit www.senticell.bio.
SOURCE Senticell
