CellsBin, a Branford biotechnology company, announced it has received a Direct-to-Phase II Small Business Innovation Research award from the National Cancer Institute to advance CB-Insight, its blood-based test for multiple myeloma.

Multiple myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells in the bone marrow, and examining those cells directly has typically required a bone marrow biopsy, in which a needle removes a sample from the bone. CB-Insight aims to find the few myeloma cells that travel in the bloodstream and capture them intact and alive.

“Blood is the next frontier in multiple myeloma,” said Dr. Natalia Neparidze, associate professor of medicine and research leader of the Myeloma Program at Yale School of Medicine, “Our goal should be to give doctors the kind of biological insight that today comes from the bone marrow, using only a blood draw. That would allow us to examine the disease more often and with less burden on patients.”

The award follows CellsBin’s Series A financing, announced in September and led by 108 BioCapital.

A clinical study led by principal investigator Elan Gorshein, DO, JD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine, will measure how well the technology detects and recovers living myeloma cells from patients’ blood and compare the results with standard clinical tests. Gorshein said: “The important question now is whether this technology works reliably and consistently in patients. The study will measure how well it detects myeloma cells in the blood and recovers them alive, alongside standard tests. If we can reliably recover these cells from blood, it could give us a powerful new way to follow myeloma over time and better understand how the disease works.”

CellsBin’s technology combines imaging, microfluidics and machine learning to separate extremely rare cells from normal blood cells while keeping them alive for genetic and molecular study.

“This award moves us from proving the concept to building a test for clinical use,” said Ali Kabiri, PhD, co-founder and chief executive officer of CellsBin, “The goal is not simply to detect a rare signal. It is to consistently recover the actual myeloma cell, intact and alive, and build a clinical laboratory process around that capability. We believe that is the path toward a future blood test and, ultimately, toward bone marrow-level insights from blood.”

Under the award, CellsBin plans to test the technology in patients, confirm consistent results and prepare it for clinical laboratory use, including work toward a laboratory-developed test under federal clinical laboratory standards.

Kabiri added: “If we can use blood to see the biology that today is visible only through occasional bone marrow biopsies, the benefits go beyond convenience. It changes how often we can check on the disease, what we can learn from each sample, and potentially how closely we can track how it changes over time.”

CellsBin is also developing applications in precision diagnostics and in research that helps bring laboratory discoveries to patients.