One more time, the annual TOP100 Swiss Startup Award recognizes the best and most promising startups in Switzerland up to 5 years since their foundation. This year again, Lunaphore is part of the list and has jumped from the 3rd position to rank in 2nd place!

The event took place in Zürich, where the Lunaphore founders Ata Tuna Ciftlik, CEO; Diego Dupouy, CTO and Déborah Heintze, COO, received the award and celebrated this success.

2019 TOP100 list

We are happy to announce the appointment of Joseph Bernardo as our new Chairman of Lunaphore’s Board of Directors.

Mr. Bernardo has an extensive background marked by excellence in leadership positions and will support Lunaphore’s aim to consolidate its position as a key player in the future of tissue analytics.

Read the full press release

We are happy to announce the beginning of a new collaboration with CARTANA AB and Prof. Dr. Mats Nilsson’s laboratory at Science for Life laboratory, Stockholm University, to integrate and automate CARTANA’s Next Generation In Situ Sequencing (NGISS) on Lunaphore’s microfluidic tissue processor technology. The team was granted a Eurostars-2 grant to support the effort.

Read the full press release.

We are pleased to announce that a new rapid multiplexing application is available on the LabSat™ platform*.

Following the signature of a co-marketing agreement between Lunaphore and Akoya Biosciences, Lunaphore will start providing multiplexing protocols using Akoya’s Opal® immunohistochemistry kits for our staining instrument LabSat™ Research.

Read the full press release.

We are happy to announce the publication of our latest scientific paper in collaboration with Prof. Mats Nilsson (Sci4Life at Stockholm University) and Prof. Gijs (Laboratory of Microsystems at EPFL, Lausanne).

The article was published in Scientific Reports, a member journal of Springer Nature, discussing “A microfluidic platform towards automated multiplexed in situ sequencing”. You can read the full, open-access paper here.

With this study, we take another step towards automation of in situ sequencing of mRNA transcripts. In situ sequencing (ISS) is a technique which has proven useful for the molecular profiling of single cells, similarly to other RNA sequencing techniques, while retaining information about its spatial organization within the tissues. This is important in order to understand the functionality and the processes taking place in these cells.

As opposed to regular sequencing techniques, the field of spatial transcriptomics lacks automation, mainly due to its protocols’ complexity. Prof. Mats Nilsson, Scientific Director of the Science for Life Laboratory, explains: “Spatially resolved transcriptomics are becoming increasingly important in the Human Cell Atlas project, and for characterizing tumors. One limitation we face is that most methods that have become available in recent times are manual, and that is why this work towards automation is so important.”

Lunaphore’s automated instrument based on a microfluidic technology, has been able to perform ISS assays, not only showing a dramatic decrease in protocol times, but also a higher detection efficiency. This study has identified as well a lower consumption of oligonucleotide reagents with the microfluidic platform, which has a positive impact on its scale-up potential as the high cost of this reagents is often a barrier for many laboratories.

Lunaphore is currently developing a stand-alone solution to provide full-automation for multiplexed ISS. Dr. Diego Dupouy, CTO and co-founder at Lunaphore, adds: “The integration of our technology with fluorescence image acquisition will enable the automation of numerous applications in the field of in situ interrogation of tumor samples. These new techniques require complex and lengthy protocols that need to become reproducible and faster in order to pave their way to diagnostics”.

After being nominated as finalist, Lunaphore wins the Swiss Technology Award in the “Startup” category!

On November 22^nd we attended the event organized by the Swiss Innovation Forum and collected this fantastic award. We are proud that our technology as well as the company have been recognized with such a prestigious award.

Here you can watch the video of the ceremony and listen to the interview with our CEO, Ata Tuna Ciftlik:

Last week, Lunaphore had a very intense week with two exciting congress attendances, where we had the opportunity of meeting some of the leading Swiss cancer researchers, as well top pathology specialists:

Early in the week, we were present at the 2-day 7th Faculty &Staff Retreat of the Swiss Cancer Lausanne (SCCL) with a booth, as Gold Sponsors of the event. We presented as well a poster on “Microfluidic-based automated multiplex immunophenotyping and imaging“.

We also attended the  84th Annual Congress of the Swiss Society of Pathology (SGPath) in Lugano, where we had a booth display and two scientific presentations:

1. Oral presentation: “Microfluidic-based Immunohistochemistry for Molecular Profiling of Breast Cancer: a Comparative Clinical Study“.
2. Poster presentation: “Microfluidic-based Multiplexed Immunohistochemistry for PD-L1 and p40/TTF1
   on Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma“.

Stay tuned for more news!

We are very happy to announce the publication of our latest scientific paper in collaboration with the University Hospital of Zurich.

The article was published in Diagnostic Pathology, a journal part of Springer Nature, discussing “Microfluidics-based immunofluorescence for fast staining of ALK in lung adenocarcinoma”.

You can read the full, open-access paper here.

UPDATE (31.01.2020): This agreement in no longer active.

Lunaphore Technologies SA, a Swiss Company developing innovative next-generation devices for cancer tissue diagnostics, and A. Menarini Diagnostics S.r.l., one of Europe’s leading diagnostic solution providers and part of the Menarini Group, today jointly announce the start of a strategic partnership bringing to the market a new and innovative system, using Lunaphore’s technology.

Read the full press release

The annual TOP100 Swiss Startup Award publishes a list of the best and most promising startups in Switzerland under 5 years since foundation. This year again, Lunaphore is part of the list and has jumped for the first time onto the podium ranking at the 3rd place!

The event took place in Zürich, where the Lunaphore founders Ata Tuna Ciftlik, CEO, and Diego Dupouy, CTO appeared on stage to receive the award.

2018 TOP100 list