Research

Functional immune profiling in intact human tumor tissue

Cell signaling and intracellular interactions begin to change the moment the tissue is removed from the body, making it difficult to measure immune response. Immune cell egress begins almost immediately and functional signaling declines within hours. So even when tissue is viable, the underlying biology is already changing.

elive™ is an ex vivo functional immune profiling platform developed to measure how live tumor tissue responds to therapy. By maintaining the native tumor microenvironment, including stroma, immune populations and cell-cell interactions, elive generates a functional readout that is closer to human biology than organoids or 2D systems.

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From basic discovery to translational investigation and early drug development

Basic researchers benefit from mechanistic insight in preserved living human tissue with data that aligns to NIH’s New Approach Methodology evaluation criteria on reproducibility and translatability.
Translational teams get functional cytokine response data with strong concordance to clinical outcomes — anchored in intact human biology.
Early drug developers get earlier, more confident go/no-go decisions from human-relevant data — before clinical trial investment.

Maintain biology and make it measurable

elive™ is a purpose-built platform of instruments, consumables, and reagents designed to functionally maintain and profile live tissue samples with precision. The three components — Edge, Gel, and Method — are engineered to work together as a complete system or individually based on your lab's needs.

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elive™ Edge: Proprietary automated cutting instrument

Generates uniform, 300 μm thick fragments
Oscillates to reduce tissue damage
Slices to optimal thickness for nutrient diffusion

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elive™ Gel: Novel hydrogel that preserves biology

Maintains native stromal and immune cells
Sustains metabolic activity
Preserves functional immune signaling

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elive™ Method: Sequential treatment strategy

Applies treatment and control to same tissue
Enables paired functional comparison
Eliminates the need for cross-well design

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Built on peer-reviewed science and clinical data

Prediction of immunotherapy response using live tumor fragments from routine clinical biopsies
Clinical correlation paper published in Cell Reports Medicine, October 2026

This paper demonstrates that a scalable ex vivo platform using standard-of-care biopsies can accurately predict ICI response. We show the elive™ platform correctly identifies clinical benefit in 93% of patients across a multicenter study, including patients who would be missed by current companion diagnostic biomarkers.

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Evaluation of immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapies ex vivo in live tumor fragments from core biopsies and resections accurately predicts response in the clinic
Poster presented at AACR D3 2026

This poster presents data from mouse xenografts derived from the KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer cell line MIA PaCa-2, showing decreased cell viability following ex vivo treatment with three separate KRAS inhibitors. A follow-up study using live tumor fragments from a human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma specimen showed similar cytotoxic effects, highlighting the platform's potential to functionally evaluate targeted therapies in patient-derived tumor tissue.

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Characterization of αPD-1, αCTLA-4, and αLAG-3 as mono and combination therapy in live tumor fragments using an ex vivo cytokine profiling platform
Poster presented at AACR IO 2026

This poster characterizes cytokine responses to single agent and combination immune checkpoint inhibitors beyond PD-1 in live tumor fragments generated from resections and core needle biopsies, revealing that unique cytokine signatures are observed for individual tumor specimens, regardless of treatment condition.

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A live tumor fragment platform to assess immunotherapy response in core needle biopsies while addressing challenges of tumor heterogeneity
Platform paper published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, January 2026

We describe our ex vivo platform for assessing immune checkpoint inhibitor response using live tumor tissue while preserving large areas of the contiguous native tumor microenvironment. Using a sequential treatment strategy, we mitigate tumor heterogeneity challenges exacerbated when tissue amount is scarce.

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450+ subjects have participated in Elephas clinical trials

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elive is available for use in your lab through a straightforward access model:

License the elive™ Edge instrument
Purchase consumables (blades, elive™ Gel) per sample
No-fee annual license for elive™ Method, contingent on citation in publications and scientific communications