An early-career UT Southwestern researcher’s idea to build a biotech business based on a blood test for a heart condition got a boost after a regional semifinal competition at BioLabs Pegasus Park.

AmyGo Solutions, co-founded by postdoctoral researcher Rose Pedretti, Ph.D., focuses on a blood test for transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR), a condition that causes plaques in the heart. She received a Golden Ticket Award from BioLabs, which includes research space and equipment for a year at BioLabs Pegasus Park near the UT Southwestern campus.

The competition was part of the Activator program created by Nucleate, a nonprofit organization that supports academic trainees to spin off their innovations. The Activator program provides an equity-free, five-month curriculum that links budding biotech entrepreneurs with mentors who guide them through key business development processes.

Now in its third year, it is offered free of charge to early-career scientists and business students in more than 200 universities and institutions across the globe. Nucleate Activator alumni have gone on to raise more than $410 million and create just over 100 companies and 200-plus jobs.

“The North Texas biotech ecosystem is growing rapidly, partly due to talented trainees coming out of our local universities,” said Vaibhav Bommareddy, a third-year medical student in UT Southwestern’s Perot Family Scholars Medical Scientist Training Program and co-Managing Director of the Nucleate Texas at Dallas chapter.

Winner of the May 8 semifinal contest was BioDelivera – created by Ikeda and Orikeda Trashi, twin sisters and chemistry graduate students at UT Dallas – for developing a system to deliver anticancer drugs to solid tumors.

Other business ideas presented at the Pegasus Park semifinals included:

• An artificial intelligence phone app with accurate medical and social information to guide girls starting puberty
• A “virtual” E. coli cell that would simulate genetic engineering of potential new drugs
• A 3D modeling system for cardiac catheterization to guide surgeons in planning graft or stent surgeries.

Other Texas semifinals were held in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio before the statewide finals May 30. The finalist will go to a global summit in Boston this summer.

Dr. Pedretti explains how her blood test aims to detect misfolding of a protein called transthyretin, which can lead to transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR), a condition that causes plaques in the heart. Dr. Pedretti and UT Southwestern’s Lorena Saelices, Ph.D., are co-founders of AmyGo Solutions, which is working to develop the test.

BioDelivera and AmyGo Solutions both progressed to the state competition. At that event, BioDelivera took first place and the Texas Trailblazer honor for Best Overall Pitch, sponsored by the McCombs Foundation, and a funded trip to the 2025 Nucleate Summit. AmyGo Solutions earned the Alnylam Scientific Excellence Award and six weeks of free student consulting through the Consulting Club at Texas Medical Center.

AmyGo Solutions is a company founded by Dr. Pedretti and Lorena Saelices, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in UTSW’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases, based on Dr. Pedretti’s graduate work with Dr. Saelices.

Dr. Pedretti’s research focused on ATTR, a disease caused by misfolding of a protein called transthyretin. Normally, transthyretin carries thyroid hormone and vitamin A through the bloodstream. When it misfolds, however, it accumulates in the heart; ATTR is involved in an estimated 15% of heart failure patients, but diagnosis involves an expensive and invasive biopsy that usually only happens when a clinician suspects ATTR after years of heart problems.

AmyGo Solutions is developing a blood test to detect misfolded transthyretin in patients as young as 40. The company’s business model would include producing test kits and testing services for clinical and research use, plus licensing the technology to other companies.

BioDelivera founders Ikeda Trashi, left, and her sister, Orikeda Trashi, present their innovation on delivering anticancer medication. Their idea won the semifinalist event at BioLabs.

The semifinalist and finalist winner, BioDelivera, was founded by Ikeda and Orikeda Trashi to harness virus-like particles (VLPs) as a way to deliver anticancer medications to solid tumors. To target breast cancer, the Trashis exploit a receptor called HER2 that is overexpressed in six types of tumors.

Unlike traditional monoclonal antibodies, which tend to get trapped in tumor tissue due to their Y-shape and remain on the surface of tumors, BioDelivera’s delivery system penetrates tumor tissue more effectively. It can carry and protect a variety of therapeutic cargos – including proteins, RNA, DNA, and small molecules – from degradation.

“A key advantage of these VLPs is their modularity: They can be reprogrammed to target different cancers, such as PD-L1+ or PDGFRB+ tumors, making them suitable for treating triple-negative breast cancer and colon cancer,” said Orikeda Trashi.

By engineering a customized VLP that carries both an anticancer payload and an anti-HER2 targeting agent, the Trashis aim to deliver treatment specifically to HER2-positive cancer cells, enabling precise targeting of solid tumors. A major challenge in treating solid tumors is the poor penetration of drugs, which often requires multiple high-dose treatments. However, these engineered VLPs can reduce the required dosage by effectively delivering therapeutic agents deep into the core of the tumor, Ms. Trashi said.

Importantly, the Trashis’ VLPs demonstrate superior targeting capabilities, with no detectable off-target accumulation in healthy organs. This precision not only enhances therapeutic efficacy but also significantly improves the quality of life for cancer patients by sparing healthy tissues from damage, according to the Trashis.

“It has been particularly exciting being able to support early-stage academic founders, and I hope Nucleate will continue to encourage Texas trainees to pursue their own entrepreneurial ambitions,” Mr. Bommareddy said.