[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

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.

[jkirshner]

Thanks! I asked TechCrunch to fix the company name.

[eliben]

Isn't biology / medical research too expensive to do enough meaningful work on a YC grant?

The sums YC provides work well for a couple of programmers with laptops - can keep 'em going for a while, but you folks need labs and stuff.

[mparikh]

Yes, biological research requires a lot of infrastructure and laboratory set-up, so it is indeed expensive. However, YC is an amazing platform to get your technology off the ground and in front of customers. In addition to the funding, advice from YC members has been invaluable in getting a strong business strategy.