The HPM Light µ [Image courtesy of CryoCapCell]
The money will go toward CryoCapCell’s technology to freeze living tissue samples through ultra-rapid, high-pressure vitrification (or cryogenisation), preventing the alteration of biological structures. The goal is to initially use the technology for cancer research electron-microscopy.
“The high-pressure vitrification technology combined with optical microscopy designed by CryoCapCell is a truly disruptive innovation: it will allow scientists to better explore living samples, thus opening up completely new areas of research and application, which could have a significant impact on the study and development of biological structures,” Philippe Tramoy, investment director at the Quadrivium 1 seed capital fund at Seventure Partners, said in a news release.
The use of correlative microscopy in research laboratories will lead to better understanding of the relationship between biological structures and their function. The resulting insights could prove indispensable in the study of tumors, according to CryoCapCell officials.
“In the battle against cancer, the understanding of living tissue requires dynamic, high-resolution observation on multiple scales,” said Xavier Heiligenstein, co-founder of CryoCapCell.
“To help establish a precise relationship between cell morphology and function, our high-pressure vitrification technology, combined with dynamic observation tools, becomes a central element in the analysis of the biological mechanisms that underlie cancerous disorders. Our technology allows live monitoring of a biological event, thanks to a photonic microscope, followed by the vitrification of the sample in less than two seconds,” Heiligenstein said.
The Institut Curie and Arts et Metier supported the development of CryoCapCell’s proprietery technology which also benefited from a solid industrial network in the Clermont-Ferrand region.
Created in 2011, the CryoCapsule is able to perform the entire workflow of correlative microscopy through vitrification by high pressure freezing. Through a collaboration with ABRA Flui, the original designer of the HPM010, CryoCapsule last year launched what is says is the first high pressure freezing machine associated with an inverted microscope: the HPM Light µ.
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