Palo Alto-based Vellum Biotechnology, Inc. has received a USD 1.01 million NIH SBIR R44 grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute to develop an electrophoresis-based nucleic acid extraction platform for formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue (FFPET) samples — a persistent bottleneck in genomic research and clinical diagnostics.
FFPET archives represent one of the most valuable and underutilized resources in biomedical research, with millions of samples stored globally. However, conventional silica column and magnetic bead-based extraction methods frequently yield degraded, low-quantity nucleic acids from FFPET, limiting the reliability of downstream next-generation sequencing (NGS). The problem is structural: paraffin residue and cell debris interfere with solid-phase binding, producing variable output that can compromise irreplaceable samples.
Vellum is developing epitachophoresis (ETP), a liquid-phase separation approach that uses a circular well and a liquid/liquid interface to purify nucleic acids under an electric field — bypassing the clogging and binding variability inherent to solid-phase systems. Preliminary data generated at Roche Molecular Systems and Vellum, under principal investigator Yann Astier, indicated superior nucleic acid yields, broader fragment length recovery, and improved sequencing quality compared with commercial products from Promega and Qiagen.
The Phase II SBIR award will fund optimization of well components — including outer well, inner barrier, membrane, and electrode compositions — and benchmarking of prototype consumables against established commercial systems. The two-year program runs through May 2027.