Charlottesville biotech Cerillo Inc. is one of 20 companies tapped to participate in BioTools Innovator, a four-month accelerator program for life sciences and diagnostics startups.
More than 300 startups from 33 countries and 35 U.S. states applied for the program. The Los Angeles accelerator provides customized mentorship from senior industry leaders, funding opportunities and connections with peers and advisers.
The program is backed by the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation of Tucson, Arizona’s Research Corporation Technologies Inc. with additional support from Bethesda, Maryland’s BroadOak Capital Partners and Houston’s Nissan Chemical America Corp.
“BioTools Innovator’s mission is to nurture the life science entrepreneurs whose technologies enable more efficient drug discovery and development processes, and faster and more accurate diagnostics,” Kathryn Zavala, managing director of BioTools Innovator, said in a statement. “With the expertise and guidance of distinguished thought leaders in the biotools and diagnostics industries, our innovators are better positioned to meaningfully contribute to the advancement of human health."
Cerillo, founded in 2016 by University of Virginia professors Jason Papin and Erik Hewlett and biomedical engineering alum Kevin Seitter, develops scientific instrumentation for microbiome studies. Its platform introduces efficiencies, data standardization, reproducibility and analysis of research findings.
Cerillo isn’t the only Virginia company that’s part of the 20-company cohort: CytoRecovery Inc., a Blacksburg startup that grew out of Virginia Tech, was also selected. It develops diagnostic technologies for cell biologists and life sciences researchers to sort, enrich and recover cell subpopulations from tissue, blood and other bio samples.
