For years, the race has been on to be able to detect early-stage cancerous tumors without having to subject a patient to the risks, pain and inconvenience of surgical removal of a tumor sample for biopsy testing. Many companies are trying to hone the ability to detect cancer cells through standard blood draws.

But now, one local medtech company is working on a technology that it hopes can detect early-stage cancers without ever having to penetrate the patient’s body – not even for a blood draw.

Manhattan Beach-based startup HelioFlux Inc. is testing technology that uses subtle changes in light emissions to detect early-stage cancer cells in solid tumors. The technology is still in its very early stages – human trials have not yet begun – but if it’s proven successful, it could revolutionize oncology screening.

“Our technology has the potential to make cancer detection more accurate, accessible and cost-effective, while also offering a non-invasive treatment option that could significantly improve patient outcomes and quality of life,” said Nirosha Murugan, a Canadian lab researcher who is a HelioFlux co-founder, its chief executive and chief scientist.

Chance discovery during research

Murugan said that during her lab research for her doctoral degree in biophysics at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, in Canada, her research team was looking at non-chemical communications between cells and found something interesting: cancer cells have a faster metabolism than most other cells and therefore emit light at different wavelengths and frequencies than other cells.

“Our team recorded these signals from healthy tissues and cancer tissues and that led to the discovery of a clear (light) signature difference between what is cancer and not cancer,” Murugan said.

This discovery only applied to cancers in solid tumors, not free-floating cancer cells in the bloodstream (lymphoma) or other non-tumor cancers. Nonetheless, when Murugan presented her team’s research at a quantum biology conference early last year in Galveston, Texas, the broader market implications were immediately obvious to Kelly Lucas, an attendee at that conference who was scouting new technologies on behalf of a couple of venture capitalists.

“I went up to her (Murugan) after this presentation and talked this over,” Lucas said. “I wondered why this technology was not already out in the world. It is incredible technology that could save a lot of lives and make a lot of money in the process.”

That was when the idea for a new company to develop and market this technology emerged; Murugan and Lucas decided to name the startup HelioFlux.

While Murugan’s lab was – and still is – in Waterloo, Ontario, Lucas decided to make the new company’s home in the Los Angeles area. “There’s so much opportunity here for startups, with such a great talent base,” Lucas said.

HelioFlux’s startup capital has been modest: a $70,000 Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) note with up-front money from investors in exchange for future equity in the company, along with $40,000 raised through capital market company StartEngine. That’s been enough to set up a temporary office in Manhattan Beach.

On the research and technology side, Murugan has also managed to pull in more than $1 million in research grants.

Lucas said HelioFlux is now looking for a larger fundraise through StartEngine – in the neighborhood of $5 million. She did not provide a target date to complete this fundraise.

With the money raised so far, HelioFlux has managed to complete studies of the light detection technology using animals. Murugan said those studies have been successful in helping prove the concept. But more complex and costly studies on human subjects lie ahead.

Two-track market

Murugan said that assuming the light emission test concept holds up during those human studies, she sees two major markets ahead for the technology: In clinicians’ offices as a cancer screening tool and inside a device that consumers can wear.

One big advantage of the technology is that because it is completely non-invasive, it can scan repeatedly for cancer with little or no negative impact on the patient. That makes it ideal for the consumer wearables market – similar in concept to the popular Fitbit trackers.

“I see something like this coming in very handy for someone whose family has a history of a certain type of cancer,” Murugan said. “You could use it to scan periodically for the first signs of cancer.”

Eventually, Murugan said, the technology as developed further could even substitute for one of the most widely used cancer screening tools today: the mammography.

But first, HelioFlux will have to overcome decades of practice in cancer detection that emphasizes the surgical biopsy.

“Current biopsy techniques are the gold standard because of their accuracy and reliability,” said Travis Craddock, associate professor in quantum neurobiology at the University of Waterloo, in the same Ontario city that hosts Murugan’s lab.

Craddock said that HelioFlux’s technology must still show repeatable, reliable results with the same level of accuracy in detection or better than existing detection methods. That also means overcoming one huge hurdle that Craddock foresees: false positive or negative readings that are affected by ambient light “noise.”

Essentially, Craddock said, because the variation in light signal between cancer and non-cancer cells is so subtle, background light entering in can easily be confused for the cellular signals.

With the HelioFlux technology as it is now, the best way to minimize this chance is to have the cellular signal scans conducted in near-total darkness. Such conditions are difficult to establish and maintain, he added.

However, he said, “as with all technologies this may improve in time with additional research and development.”

Murugan acknowledged this drawback to the cellular light emission detection technology. She said that initially, human patients would be in dark rooms so that no ambient light gets in, though she did say that might make some patients uncomfortable.

But, Murugan added, her team is working on ways to limit the dark environment to a space immediately surrounding the light sensor, as well as on ways to amplify the light signals coming from cells to make them more distinguishable from ambient light noise.

If HelioFlux is able to work through these challenges, Craddock said the company’s cellular light emission detection technology could emerge as the preferred non-invasive alternative to the current tissue biopsy technique for finding early cancerous tumors.

“All invasive detection methods have an inherent risk associated with infection or injury,” Craddock said. “Light emissions are non-invasive, and this expands what can be measured in an individual.”