Vale Biolabs receives €164K from Venture Kick to advance brain disease research

Biotech startup Vale Biolabs has received
€164,000 (CHF 150,000) from Venture Kick to advance its platform for studying
brain diseases and evaluating potential treatments.

Founded by Ilaria Incaviglia, Angeliki Damilou,
Daniel Medina Cano and Theodoulos Rodosthenous, Vale Biolabs combines lab-grown
human brain tissue, automation and predictive AI to help researchers better
understand how the brain responds to drugs and support the development of new
therapies. The founding team brings together expertise in organoid
neurobiology, automation, data science engineering and early-stage venture
development.

Developing treatments for neurological disorders
remains challenging, particularly because preclinical research relies heavily
on animal testing. Differences between animal and human biology can make it
difficult to predict how drugs will perform in patients, contributing to
failures during clinical trials, increasing development costs and delaying new
therapies.

Vale Biolabs aims to address these challenges by
developing standardised human brain organoids, miniature tissue models that
reproduce certain characteristics of the human brain. Using automation, the
company monitors changes in these models over time, analysing their structure,
activity and molecular responses before and after exposure to potential
treatments.

The collected data is used to develop predictive
AI models that support research into brain development, neurodegenerative
diseases and healthy brain ageing. By allowing drug developers to test
treatments on human brain tissue earlier in the development process, the
platform aims to identify promising therapies and potential failures before
they reach clinical trials.

The technology could support research into a
range of neurological conditions, including rare brain disorders and
neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, while
potentially reducing development costs and accelerating the introduction of new
treatments.

The funding from Venture Kick will support the
further development of Vale Biolabs’ automated platform, the expansion of its
human brain organoid models and the generation of datasets to train and
validate its predictive AI models. It will also help the company advance
collaborations with research and industry partners.