
Ixchel (YC S15) Predicts How Cancer Drugs Will Behave in Humans - jcr
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/21/y-combinator-backed-ixchel-predicts-how-cancer-drugs-will-behave-in-humans-before-you-even-swallow-a-pill/
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jkirshner
Hey everyone,

Please let us know if we can answer any questions about what we do, the
current state of cancer treatment, or anything about cancer, in general.

Julia (CEO, Ixchel Scientific; www.ixchelsci.com)

~~~
jcr
Hi Julia, thanks for answering questions.

I noticed something odd in the techcrunch article; the author, Sarah Buhr
(@sarahbuhr), capitalized your company name incorrectly as "IxChel" in the
article title. I fixed the capitalization after submitting this to HN, and
dang (Dan) or another HN admin most likely fixed the "YC-backed" to the usual
"(YC S15)". You might want to ask techcrunch to fix it?

I have not (yet) read the linked papers in your site:

[http://ixchelsci.com/#publications](http://ixchelsci.com/#publications)

Which I hope will provide more details, but at the moment, I'm curious how
your whole system/service works?

~~~
jkirshner
Our platform is a cell-based laboratory tool where we reconstruct the
environment of human organs in a dish. When cells are placed in these
physiological conditions, they behave the way they would behave in the human
body (unlike the conventional models where cells are grown on a surface of
plastic dishes). Such set-up allows us to evaluate how cancer cells will
respond to drugs (or drug combinations) under native conditions of drug-
resistance. I.e. when cancer cells interact with their environment in the
human organs, this environment protects them against chemotherapy and other
drugs, so when cells are taken out of their physiological environment, they
become more sensitive to drugs. This results in a false assumption that the
drug has anti-cancer activity, but when it's introduced into a patient, the
drug doesn't work.

What we provide, is a system where drugs can be tested under the conditions
similar to those seen by the cancer cells in the human.

What we are offering right now, are services to test drugs in our system, and
we are gearing-up to provide all-inclusive kits that can be used by
researchers to run these assays in their own labs.

Please let us know if you would like know things in more detail.

~~~
jcr
The link on your site to the SPIE Journal of Biomedical Optics paper is
paywalled [1], but the paper is freely available from NIH [2]. You might want
to change the link on your site, or just add NIH link(s) as backups (I also
found [3] on NIH).

So far, I've only read through the abstract, but the use of Raman spectroscopy
[4] for identification looks fascinating. I had no clue that it's possible to
differentiate cancer cells with a spectrograph, and no, I really have no idea
how or why the analysis works. On the other hand, automating test equipment in
a lab is a whole lot of fun!

At the moment, the closest thing I can manage to a useful question is:
Can/Will/Does your service automate this analysis method?

[1]
[http://biomedicaloptics.spiedigitallibrary.org/mobile/articl...](http://biomedicaloptics.spiedigitallibrary.org/mobile/article.aspx?articleid=1782132)

[2]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3832300/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3832300/)

[3]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC141028/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC141028/)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_spectroscopy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_spectroscopy)

~~~
jkirshner
Thanks for the suggestion, we will add the links to the NIH repository for the
papers that are available.

Regarding automation, the Raman spectroscopy studies was done in collaboration
with a colleague at Purdue University, so at the moment, we don't have plans
to extend these studies.

However, we are working on automating our workflow to streamline the set-up
and analysis of our cultures. So, if you know anyone working on bio lab-
related automation, we'd love an intro.

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mparikh
Hey everyone,

I'm the co-founder & CTO of Ixchel Scientific - would love to answer any
questions you may have about our company!

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tristanho
Is it just me or does the S15 batch seem to have a crazy number of
medical/health startups compared to previous batches? There were at least 2 on
the front page yesterday. Maybe they're just all launching on TC early?

Not saying it's a bad thing, all these companies look awesome, just curious.

~~~
katm
There are 11 or 12 healthcare/medical companies in this batch -- which isn't
more than W15. They all just seem to be hitting TC at the same time.

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chuie
Would your product be a suitable replacement for mouse models?
[https://edge.org/response-detail/25429](https://edge.org/response-
detail/25429)

~~~
jkirshner
The short answer is, ideally yes, but not completely. The animal models of
cancer are poor at predicting how the drug will work in a human, but where
they have value is in evaluation of drug safety. So, we envision that the
toxicity studies would still be done in animals, but near-human, organ-
specific models would ultimately replace animal studies of drug efficacy.

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discardorama
Personalized medicines are a frontier for the next major advances in medicine.
We have multiple medications for the same disease, each working differently in
different individuals.

I did some work in the area a decade ago, and data was the hardest thing to
come by.

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pacofvf
FYI Ixchel is the Mayan goddess of Medicine.

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nphyte
what are good ways of educating people about cancer? I have a relative who was
diagnosed in the later stages and it was a very traumatic exp for them and the
family. Are there some tests that can be integrated with the regular body
check up that can help people with earlier diagnosis?

~~~
jkirshner
American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), American Cancer Society
(ACS), and National Cancer Institute (NCI) are good sources for reliable
information on cancer. There are many sites that talk about cancer, but if you
want information based on research (both lab and clinical) these three provide
the most trustworthy information.

Regarding tests, some are already available, such as mammography, and many
people are working on creating molecular diagnostics that can identify cancer
early from a blood sample. A few blood tests already exist, such as CA125 for
ovarian cancer, PSA for prostate, CEA for colon.

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danialtz
Did you get significant improvements over the 2D cell lines? or 3D cell lines?

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jkirshner
Yes, absolutely. Our platform provides physiologically relevant 3D environment
that recapitulates the native conditions seen in human tissues. Moreover,
unlike the models with immortalized cells lines, which for many cancers are
not representative of the disease, our platform sustains primary cells from
patients. Our studies demonstrate that our platform has high correlation with
clinical response (i.e. how cells respond to drugs in our system matches how
the patient responds).

