Most of us don’t give the lowly worm much thought during the course of our day, unless we’re digging in our garden.
NemaMetrix sells a drug discovery platform that allows scientists to quickly assess if a drug has therapeutic value or potentially dangerous side effects. The startup’s ScreenChip System collects data after DNA from a human patient is injected into these simple microscopic animals, which provide a living proxy to watch disease progression or drug reactions quickly and cheaply.
CEO Matt Beaudet believes NemaMetrix has hit on the biggest advancement in drug discovery in decades.
“Honestly, I believe we’re building a platform that will transform access to living animals for basic research and applied research, figuring out what it means for humans,” Beaudet said. “I don’t think there’s a limit to the number of labs we can get in.”
Read the rest of the article at Portland Business Journal.