Elypta’s co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Francesco Gatto, has been named Pioneer of the Year at MIT Technology Review’s European Innovators Under 35 Summit in Paris.

The co-founder of the Swedish liquid-biopsy startup Elypta receives the award for his groundbreaking research into using metabolic markers to detect cancer which is now being brought to market.

MIT Technology Review has been running the event since 1999 to recognize young European researchers whose work promises to have a broad impact in the coming decades.

PhD studies at Chalmers

During his PhD studies at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Francesco identified a set of metabolic biomarkers which are altered in the blood and urine of renal cell carcinoma patients, the most common form of kidney cancer.

Since then, a liquid biopsy technology for measurement of these biomarkers has been developed further at Elypta and also tested in many more cancers, confirming its broad potential.

“I am deeply honored”

“The role of metabolism in cancer had gone underappreciated for many years, and in the last decade was the scientific community able to reveal how central is metabolic reprogramming to define the survival and growth of virtually any form of cancer. We are now participating in the efforts to realise clinical benefits from these findings. Our discovery paves a new way to detect and track cancer which is orthogonal to other emerging technologies. The team is very dedicated and passionate about our mission to bring this new diagnostic test to the benefit of patients. It goes without saying, I am deeply honored to have been named Pioneer of the Year at the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Europe Summit and I am extremely grateful to the jury for their vote of confidence,” said Gatto.