For years, cancer researcher Sebastian Student (DSc, PhD, Eng, Associate Professor at Silesian University of Technology) worked with cells grown in conventional laboratory dishes. But the more he studied them, the more one limitation became difficult to ignore: cells in a dish are not cells in a human body. That observation set him on a journey to build a different way of testing potential medicines.
For almost two decades, Sebastian Student, DSc, PhD, Eng, Associate Professor has worked with cancer cell cultures at the Silesian University of Technology. Like countless researchers around the world, he relied on familiar laboratory tools: Petri dishes and flasks. But there was a fundamental problem. The environment surrounding those cells could not fully reproduce the complexity of the human body.
For basic research, that distinction matters. For researchers trying to understand how a potential medicine might eventually behave in people, it matters even more. Student became convinced there had to be a better way.
Building a more realistic environment
In 2014, a collaboration with Dr Jeff Hasty’s laboratory at the University of California, San Diego opened a new direction. Student began developing microfluidic systems for precise cell cultivation – tiny environments in which conditions surrounding cells can be more carefully controlled.
Five years later, that research led him to establish JSSYSTEMS STUDENT JOINT PARTNERSHIP. The idea behind the company is straightforward, even if the technology is not: create a laboratory environment that allows researchers to test drugs on human cells under conditions that better reflect what happens inside the body. The system combines microfluidics with a thermoresponsive matrix designed to mimic aspects of the extracellular environment around cells.
At room temperature, the matrix remains liquid, allowing cells to be introduced without unnecessary stress. At 37°C – human body temperature, it forms a stable three-dimensional structure. The platform also incorporates a patent-pending diffuser designed to maintain carbon dioxide at 5%, reducing the need for the large and expensive microscope incubators commonly used for live-cell imaging.
Together, these features are intended to make sophisticated cell testing more accessible while creating conditions that better resemble human physiology.
When the model does not tell the whole story
The problem JSSYSTEMS is tackling reaches far beyond the laboratory. Developing a new medicine means making decisions long before that medicine reaches a patient. Researchers need models that help them determine which potential treatments deserve to progress and which do not.
Yet traditional static two-dimensional cell cultures and animal models cannot perfectly reproduce human physiology. The consequences can emerge much later, when promising drug candidates reach clinical development but fail to deliver the expected results in people.
For Student, improving the models used earlier in this process could therefore have consequences much further downstream: helping researchers make better-informed decisions about which potential medicines to pursue. It is why, when asked which healthcare problem he would solve tomorrow if he could, his answer goes directly to the heart of his work: the failure rates and inefficiencies of preclinical drug testing.
Scientific success is only half the journey
Since its foundation in 2019, JSSYSTEMS has secured national patents, developed its manufacturing technology and completed several implementations on the local market. Its research has also resulted in peer-reviewed scientific publications.
Yet the challenge facing the company today is no longer purely scientific. It is commercial. JSSYSTEMS is looking for investment that would allow it to initiate sales and scale production, and progress has been slower than Student would like. “The fundraising process can be difficult,” he says. “But our belief in the technology keeps us moving forward.”
It is a familiar challenge for researchers moving into entrepreneurship. An invention can work. The evidence can be published. Intellectual property can be protected. None of those things automatically creates a business. Student describes entrepreneurship in one word: perseverance. But perseverance alone is not enough.
Falling in love with the problem
One piece of advice has stayed with Student throughout the journey: “Don’t just fall in love with your solution; fall in love with the problem you are solving.” It captures an important transition in the mindset of a scientist becoming an entrepreneur.
Scientific research asks whether something can work. Building a company introduces another set of questions: Who needs it? Who will use it? How will it reach them? Can it be manufactured? And can a sustainable business be built around it?
That is why Student’s own advice to researchers considering entrepreneurship is to engage with the business side much earlier. “A groundbreaking scientific discovery can only help people if you have a solid commercial strategy to bring it out of the lab and into the real world,” he says.
Bridging the gap
It was precisely the challenge of moving from research towards commercialisation that brought JSSYSTEMS to BRIDGE. Student applied to the BRIDGE Genesis4LifeScience programme looking for greater visibility, but also for support in becoming more investor-ready and developing a stronger commercialisation strategy.
What particularly appealed to him was the programme’s focus on the space between two worlds that do not always speak the same language: academic research and business. For JSSYSTEMS, that bridge has become particularly important. The scientific foundations have been built. The patents have been secured. The technology exists. The question now is how to turn those achievements into something researchers can routinely use.
What happens when science leaves the laboratory?
Asked what he would like to tell us if we spoke again in a year’s time, Student’s answer is simple: that JSSYSTEMS has secured the investment needed to scale production.
Behind that ambition lies a much bigger idea. A laboratory model may seem far removed from the moment a patient receives a medicine. But every treatment begins with decisions about what deserves to move forward.
The better the models behind those decisions, the better informed those choices can become. After years spent studying cancer cells, Student’s journey has taken him beyond observing them. Now, he is trying to change the environment in which we ask them one of medicine’s most important questions: Will this treatment work?