Cell Engineering · Clinical Imaging
Specification first. The number that kills it, before the run.
ZATONA BIOSCIENCES runs two programs. One writes the shortest instruction that flips a living cell from A to B. The other teaches a detector where a department’s radiologists would mark a lesion. In both, the readout is one the partner already runs, and the measurement that kills the claim is fixed before the run.
Two programs. One active line each. No catalog. New lines start from a specification.
First the target. Then the shortest path that reaches it. Then the number that kills the specification if it is wrong. Set before the run, not after.
Readout Landscape
In both programs the specification is designed around a readout the partner already runs.
Marks identify examples of instrument makers in the wider readout market.
They do not indicate partner use, platform compatibility, affiliation, or endorsement.
Program 01 · Cell Engineering
Cell state is writable code.
A living cell’s state is a program that can be specified. We write the shortest instruction that moves it from A to B, and the measurement that kills that instruction if it is wrong. The cell stays in the partner’s dish.
Line 01 · Cell Engineering
GERMLINE · NOW
An egg when there isn’t one.
The germline — the egg and sperm lineage, not the body.
If the body has no usable egg, the clinic is almost done. Age empties the reserve and breaks what remains. Donor eggs are expensive and not yours.
We write the shortest program that would reach a competent oocyte — one that can make a chromosomally normal embryo — and the measurement that kills that program if it is wrong. The cell stays in the partner's dish.
What the line is
- The piece we take
- No eggs, damaged eggs, age. The part of infertility that starts and ends in the cell itself.
- Competent, defined
- A competent oocyte can produce an embryo with the right number of chromosomes. Not a cell that merely looks like an oocyte under a marker panel.
- The program
- The shortest instruction set that moves a cell to that state — or repairs one that is broken.
- The kill measurement
- Written down before the run, on a readout the partner already measures. If it comes back wrong, the specification dies rather than the schedule.
Boundary
One cell, not the whole clinic.
Under NDA we hand over the specification and the kill measurement. We do not fix the uterus, implantation, or pregnancy. We do not run the dish. We do not publish the filter.
Clinical use sits with the partner and their regulator. We make no claim there.
Access
Closed line. Specification first.
Shared under NDA only, with the partner who runs the assay. This line takes no inbound. A new one can start on another dish.
WHO puts it at 1 in 6 people experiencing infertility in their lifetime. People have children later, so the gap widens.
Program 02 · Clinical Imaging
The reader’s eye is the ground truth.
A radiology department already knows what it would mark. We teach a detector on those marks and validate it against the same readers, on patients the model has never seen. Where, not what. Finding, not diagnosing.
Line 02 · Clinical Imaging
MRI CAD · NOW
Where the metastases are.
Metastatic lesions on MRI — the location, not the report.
A staging MRI is hundreds of slices. The radiologist finds what they find, in the time the day allows. The report sets the stage, and the stage sets the treatment.
We train a detector on the department’s own marks — the tumour, the metastases, and the slices with nothing on them — and the measurement that kills it if it misses what the readers found. The images stay de-identified. The reading stays with the department.
What the line is
- The piece we take
- Finding. Where a lesion sits on the series. Staging, treatment, and the report stay with the radiologist.
- Ground truth, defined
- The marks of the department’s readers, not histology. The claim is exactly that: where the department would have marked it.
- The detector
- Learns from those marks. Its output is a location, not a contour and not a volume. Where, not how much.
- The kill measurement
- Held-out patients, marked before the model sees them, scored per lesion. If the detector misses what the readers found, the line dies rather than the threshold.
Boundary
One question, not the workstation.
Where. Not the stage, not the treatment, not the report. Images cross to us de-identified; the boundary runs at de-identification, not at the door of the department.
Clinical use sits with the department and its regulator. We make no claim there.
Access
Closed line. Partner-run.
One partner department. Built on its marks, validated by its readers. This line takes no inbound. A second department starts its own line, on its own marks.
Staging MRI decides whether a patient goes to surgery or to treatment first. It is read by eye, slice by slice, in the time the day allows.
Next line · by specification
Want this for your department, your dish?
Both lines above are closed; they belong to the partners who run them. A new line starts the way these did: your readout, your marks or your dish, and one number written down before the run.
We take one question at a time, from a group that already runs the readout. If that is the shape of your problem, describe it. We read everything and reply to what fits. Most do not.
NDA before anything specific. No catalog, no proposal deck.