{"id":1117,"date":"2026-05-01T12:09:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T12:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/?p=1117"},"modified":"2026-05-01T12:09:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T12:09:43","slug":"the-fruit-fly-cancer-researcher-who-built-his-first-prototype-out-of-lollipop-sticks-and-straws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/?p=1117","title":{"rendered":"The fruit fly cancer researcher who built his first prototype out of lollipop sticks and straws"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Or perhaps those fruit flies are crowding a fermenting sourdough starter, or swarming a banana that\u2019s about to become an unwanted mush pile. But, for biomedical scientist Ca\u00edque Costa, fruit flies aren\u2019t meant to be swatted\u2014when studied, they\u2019re where cancer breakthroughs may begin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people think of a scientist, they don\u2019t think about a fruit fly,\u201d Costa said. \u201cThe same ones bothering your Sunday barbecue, or the bananas right in your kitchen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two things can be true\u2014that household nuisance is<\/em> simultaneously a powerful model for studying cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve covered the intersection of AI and scientific research\u2014including a magazine feature on Demis Hassabis\u2019s Isomorphic Labs\u2014I\u2019ve heard a lot about the efficiencies AI can bring to the scientific process. But I\u2019ve also wondered about what AI can\u2019t fix, because so much friction in science is grueling, physical, and terribly mundane. (The lab equipment sector alone is also worth up to $45 billion.) That\u2019s why I was interested in Costa\u2019s company FlyFast, which he started in 2024 and filed a non-provisional patent for this year. It\u2019s very early days for the small business, which derives from Costa\u2019s work studying cancer genetics through fruit flies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a lot of genetic resemblance to humans,\u201d explains Costa, who did his undergrad at Brazil\u2019s Bahiana School of Medicine and Public Health and got his Ph.D. from Tulane in 2025. Humans and fruit flies share about 60% of genes, but when it comes to human disease-associated genes, those numbers are even higher\u2014closer to 85% overlap. \u201cFlies are a very fast model for retaining results and making breakthrough discoveries,\u201d Costa told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cThey\u2019re also cheap to maintain and relatively simple to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flies are mostly<\/em> straightforward to work with, Costa points out, save for one thing: Feeding them is almost farcically labor intensive.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it goes: Scientists keep thousands of flies in hundreds of vials. About once a month, the food goes bad\u2014and the flies have to be transferred to fresh vials by hand. This isn\u2019t as easy as it may sound: Flies are known to, well, fly away. So, one at a time, the scientist will go vial?by?vial, tapping each vial of flies to make them dizzy, or using carbon dioxide to put them to sleep. They then flip the temporarily incapacitated flies into a new vial.<\/p>\n

Across the roughly 4,000 fruit fly labs worldwide, that adds up to hundreds of hours a year of highly trained researchers\u2014people studying cancer, Parkinson\u2019s, and Alzheimer\u2019s\u2014manually shuffling flies. (Hours can vary by lab size, but Costa estimates his lab was spending more than 800 hours a year fly-flipping.)<\/p>\n

To Costa, this seemed frankly insane. So he started building in 2023, with a prototype of lollipop sticks, straws, cardboard, and clips. Eventually, he designed a device that can move 10 vials at once\u2014tapping or releasing carbon dioxide in parallel, connecting old vials to new ones, and letting the researcher flip everything in one swift motion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cScience basically has two purposes,\u201d Costa said. \u201cOne is to understand nature, and the other is to make people\u2019s lives easier, right? This, to me, is exploring both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costa is a reminder that sometimes the answer isn\u2019t a better LLM. It\u2019s just paying attention to something everyone else swats away. And the next time fruit flies are swarming your banana bunch, remember: They\u2019re also responsible for treatments for cancer, Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s, diabetes, and ALS, and six Nobel Prizes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of the genes that we know cause cancer were actually first discovered in flies,\u201d Costa said. \u201cThe scientific community understands their importance, but I think people could better understand their importance.\u201d<\/p>\n

See you Monday,<\/p>\n

Allie Garfinkle
X:<\/strong> @agarfinks
Email:<\/strong> alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com<\/p>\n

Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here.<\/p>\n

Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter<\/em>.<\/em> Subscribe here.<\/p>\n

VENTURE CAPITAL<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Aidoc<\/b>, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based clinical AI platform, raised $150 million in Series E funding. <\/span>Growth Equity<\/b> at <\/span>Goldman<\/b> Sachs<\/b> Alternatives<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>General<\/b> Catalyst<\/b>, <\/span>SoftBank<\/b> Investment<\/b> Advisors<\/b>, and <\/span>NVentures<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Netomi<\/b>, a San Mateo, Calif.-based agentic AI platform for customer experience, raised $110 million in Series C\u00a0 funding. <\/span>Accenture<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Adobe<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>WndrCo<\/b>, <\/span>SLW<\/b>, <\/span>NAVER<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Metis<\/b> Strategy<\/b>, and <\/span>Fin<\/b> Capital<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>JuliaHub<\/b>, a Cambridge, Mass.-based AI-powered simulation, modeling, and computing platform, raised $65 million in Series B funding. <\/span>Dorilton<\/b> Capital<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>General<\/b> Catalyst<\/b>, <\/span>AE<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, and <\/span>Bob<\/b> Muglia<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>pmtbox<\/b>, a Orem, Utah-based enterprise commerce platform, raised $15 million in seed funding. <\/span>Tandem<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Element<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Cynosure<\/b> Investment<\/b> Partners<\/b>, and <\/span>Aaron<\/b> Skonnard<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Chord<\/b>, a New York City-based AI platform for commerce operations, raised $7 million in funding. <\/span>Equal<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>M13<\/b>, <\/span>Chingona<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, and <\/span>CEAS<\/b> Investments<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Shiprazor<\/b>, a Cape Town, South Africa-based e-commerce merchant technology and smart logistics platform, raised $2.7 million from <\/span>Norrsken22<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PRIVATE EQUITY<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Reverence<\/b> Capital<\/b> Partners<\/b> closed a $2 billion recapitalization of <\/span>Osaic<\/b>, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based wealth management solutions provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

EXITS<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Clearlake Capital Group<\/b> acquired <\/span>Qualus<\/b>, a Lake Mary, Fla.-based power solutions company, from <\/span>New Mountain Capital<\/b>. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Martin<\/b> Marietta<\/b> agreed to acquire <\/span>New<\/b> Frontier<\/b> Materials<\/b>, a Maryland Heights, Mo.-based aggregates and asphalt company. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>137<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $700 million across two funds focused on technology companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Crescent<\/b> Cove<\/b> Advisors<\/b>, a San Francisco-based investment firm, raised $446 million for its fourth fund focused on technology companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Earlybird<\/b> VC<\/b>, a Berlin, Germany-based venture capital firm, raised \u20ac360 million ($422.4 million) for its eighth fund focused on early-stage tech companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Ridgeline<\/b> Capital<\/b> Management<\/b>, a Memphis-, Washington, D.C.-, and Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, raised $180 million for its second fund focused on AI, advanced computing, hardware, and automation companies in the manufacturing, logistics, energy, and defense sectors.<\/span><\/p>\n

PEOPLE<\/h3>\n

–\u00a0 <\/span>Greybull<\/b> Stewardship<\/b>, a Jackson, Wyo.-based private equity firm, appointed <\/span>Kevin<\/b> Mohr<\/b> as CFO Operating Partner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#fruit #fly #cancer #researcher #built #prototype #lollipop #sticks #straws<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or perhaps those fruit flies are crowding a fermenting sourdough starter, or swarming a banana that\u2019s about to become an unwanted mush pile. But, for biomedical scientist Ca\u00edque Costa, fruit… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1833,1039,1837,1834,1836,1835,1840,960,1839,1838,1841,1842,963,568],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-biomedical-research","tag-built","tag-cancer","tag-cancer-research","tag-fly","tag-fruit","tag-lollipop","tag-private-equity","tag-prototype","tag-researcher","tag-sticks","tag-straws","tag-term-sheet","tag-venture-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}