Eleum, Molecl, NourishAI awarded i4L Innogrant for Biotherapeutics

Eleum

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease affecting the large intestine. It causes intestinal ulcers, leading to abdominal pain, diarrhoea, and weight loss that severely impact quality of life. Current treatments mainly work by suppressing the immune system to reduce inflammation — but do not directly heal the intestine lining, which is a key predictor of long-term remission. Research increasingly suggests that certain modifications of the gut microbiome contribute to the disease. For instance, patients with UC tend to have low levels of a particular class of microbial metabolites called secondary bile acids. These molecules produced by gut bacteria have been shown to play a crucial role in repairing the intestine lining.

The Eleum team, based in Professor Kristina Schoonjans' Laboratory of Metabolic Signalling at EPFL, is developing a new type of treatment called a Live Biotherapeutic Product, or LBP. Unlike probiotics, which are often used for general health, LBPs are designed to prevent, treat, or cure specific diseases by targeting known biological pathways. Eleum’s therapy introduces specific bacteria in the gut that restore the body’s production of secondary bile acids and return the bile acid balance to that of healthy individuals. This has been shown to help the gut heal faster and strengthen the gut barrier by supporting the body’s natural ability to regenerate the intestinal lining. By restoring this key metabolic pathway, this therapeutic approach aims to promote long-term remission for UC patients.

The team will use their Innogrant to prepare their therapy for clinical use - establishing the quality controls required by regulators and optimising the preparation protocol to maximise bacteria engraftment in the gut.

Founder: Antoine Jalil

MOLECL

Protein modifications play an important role in many biological processes and are closely linked to human health and the performance of biological therapeutics. However, current analytical methods for detecting these modifications are often slow, costly, and lack the ability to precisely identify structural variations at the molecular level. As a result, important molecular information can remain hidden, limiting the effectiveness of biological analysis and contributing to inefficiencies in healthcare and biotechnology.

The MOLECL team is developing a new approach for analyzing protein modifications using nanopore based sensing. By combining solid state nanopores with molecular recognition strategies, the technology enables analysis of individual protein molecules and the structural features associated with their modifications. This single molecule approach provides a new way to detect subtle molecular differences that are difficult to observe with existing bulk measurement techniques.

The team will use their Innogrant to advance from early laboratory proof-of-concept to clinical validation, testing their assay against real patient samples at CHUV.

Founder: Andrey Chernev

NourishAI

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurological disease for which there is no cure. ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or motor neurone disease) attacks the nerve cells responsible for controlling voluntary movement. Over time, the brain loses its ability to send signals to the muscles and patients become unable to move, speak, swallow, and eventually breathe. ALS can also disrupt the body’s metabolism. Around two thirds of patients have already lost weight by the time they are diagnosed, and even a small drop in body mass index is associated with significantly faster disease progression. Despite this, nutritional care for ALS patients remains generic – based on broad caloric guidance and supplements, with little account for the fact that each patient's metabolism behaves differently.

The NourishAI team, based in Professor Johan Auwerx's Laboratory of Integrative Systems Physiology at EPFL, is building a data-driven approach to nutrition in ALS. Their platform combines genetic, metabolic, and clinical data from ALS patient cohorts. They then use machine learning to identify which nutrient pathways are most predictive of disease progression in individual patients. The goal is to move from observation to intervention: offering a personalised nutritional framework based on the patient’s specific metabolic profile. The team is working in collaboration with Swiss neuromuscular centres in St. Gallen, Geneva and Lausanne, and will integrate with the MyFoodRepo platform - developed at EPFL - to enable real-world food logging and biomarker tracking.

The team will use their Innogrant to validate their computational findings against clinical data and develop a working prototype of the NourishAI decision tool for use by clinicians.

Founder: Asya Dolgikh