{"id":75811,"date":"2026-03-17T11:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T15:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/?p=75811"},"modified":"2026-03-17T11:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T15:26:14","slug":"a-chance-to-ring-the-bell-how-a-uga-startup-is-changing-the-fight-against-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/a-chance-to-ring-the-bell-how-a-uga-startup-is-changing-the-fight-against-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A chance to ring the bell\u2019: How a UGA startup is changing the fight against cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was 2019 when Eric DeJesus began pursuing his private pilot\u2019s certificate. Driven by a desire to learn new things, he found a new obsession above the clouds. When the school closed not long after due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, he pivoted and became a certified firefighter and paramedic to help his community during a challenging time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s evidence of a trait central to DeJesus: natural curiosity and a desire to make an impact.<\/p>\n

That curiosity took shape in his youth. Once, while serving tables at a restaurant, he met a physician who later became a mentor, introducing him to colleagues and allowing him to shadow clinical staff at the hospital.<\/p>\n

He saw himself becoming a physician at the time, but after three years shadowing surgeons and working in research labs as an undergraduate student, he was captivated instead by the science behind the application and development of treatments themselves. Around that time, his grandmother had been diagnosed with lung cancer, passing away just six months later. The toll it took on his family helped illuminate his path.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was less about diagnosing cancer,\u201d said DeJesus, currently adjunct faculty in the University of Georgia\u2019s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences<\/a> and a biochemist and molecular cell biologist at the United States Department of Agriculture. \u201cThat\u2019s a huge field. I just wanted to be part of the team that asks, once you have cancer, what are we going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a question that has driven DeJesus ever since. He arrived at the University of Georgia in 2009 to obtain his Ph.D. and work in a cancer therapeutics lab. The world, however, had other plans.<\/p>\n

After joining a cancer-focused lab at UGA\u2019s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center<\/a>, the funding that supported his position fell through in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. With little time to spare, DeJesus was desperate to find any lab to work in. He met Stephen Hajduk, then-department head of biochemistry in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n

Hajduk told DeJesus about his lab\u2019s work on a deadly parasite\u2014and an innate defense mechanism humans use against it. It\u2019s a protein that, while lethal to the parasite, posed no threat to humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy doesn\u2019t it kill us?\u201d he asked Hajduk after a brief pause.<\/p>\n

More importantly, could that lethal mechanism be redirected to solve another problem\u2014one that has eluded researchers for years?<\/p>\n

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Searching for answers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hajduk didn\u2019t have an answer at the time. He is, after all, a parasitologist\u2014focused on the parasite\u2014not an oncologist. But DeJesus saw something else: the building blocks of a drug that could potentially direct the same destructive power against cancer cells that it does to the parasite. DeJesus joined Hajduk\u2019s lab for the remainder of his Ph.D., while also continuing to explore those questions.<\/p>\n

By 2012, as DeJesus was publishing work on the topic, Hajduk and his wife, Ann, were thrust into an unknown world themselves. Ann had been experiencing unexplainable pain, discomfort, and fatigue, and neither she nor Stephen were entirely sure what to make of it.<\/p>\n

\"A
Stephen and Ann met as freshman at UGA on the first day of English 101 in 1970. \u201cI sat behind her because she had this beautiful, flowing black hair,\u201d Hajduk said. \u201cAnd I thought that this was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.\u201d By the end of the semester they were dating, and they married in 1975. (Photo provided by Stephen Hajduk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNone of us are prepared for getting old, and we don\u2019t know exactly how we\u2019re supposed to feel,\u201d Hajduk said. \u201cShould we feel tired all the time? Should we hurt?\u201d<\/p>\n

These early symptoms are often difficult to diagnose. After several years of doctor visits and tests, they visited an oncologist. The oncologist ordered a bone marrow biopsy due to her bone pain and the micro fractures he observed in her X-rays.<\/p>\n

A blood test confirmed the worst. Ann was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a deadly blood cancer that forms in bone marrow plasma cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur oncologist \u2026 said, \u2018Well, you have multiple myeloma, but we\u2019re going to treat you and we\u2019re going to cure you,\u2019\u201d Hajduk recalled. \u201cWe walked out of that meeting, and the only words we heard were \u2018and we\u2019re going to cure you.\u2019 We found out that David [Lloyd] was a good oncologist. Not a particularly good liar, but he did the right thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn his mind it was important that she had hope. And that\u2019s what he gave her.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next several years, they tried various treatments, hoping the next would lead to a cure.<\/p>\n

Ann endured a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy treatments at the Emory Winship Cancer Institute<\/a>. While waiting to be treated, patients periodically heard a ship\u2019s bell in the building, signaling the completion of someone\u2019s final round of treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t take [Ann] long to realize that she would never ring the damn bell,\u201d Hajduk said.<\/p>\n

Ann died in 2019 after a seven-year battle with cancer.<\/p>\n

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Moving forward<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Caring for Ann brought Hajduk\u2019s collaboration with DeJesus to a temporary halt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a season of life where you say, \u2018Okay, now we\u2019re going to work on this new cancer therapeutic idea while your spouse is in New York, D.C., and Atlanta trying to get treated,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cI intentionally stayed local. I found a postdoctoral position nearby and just truly hoped that one day we would be able to pick this back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

A chance encounter in January 2020 brought DeJesus and Hajduk back together at a local store. The pair exchanged hugs and condolences.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou ever think about that project?\u201d Hajduk asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day for the past five years,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve talked about it to anyone that will stand still long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day they found themselves back in the lab, now accompanied by Michael Cipriano, a longtime colleague of Hajduk and a postdoctoral researcher in his lab at UGA. With a counter full of food and a mountain of old lab data to comb through, the team began the arduous process of breathing life back into the research.<\/p>\n

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They had already established from Hajduk\u2019s past research how humans defend against trypanosomes, parasites that can cause the fatal human African sleeping sickness. A special type of \u201cgood\u201d cholesterol, known as trypanosome lytic factor (TLF), contains a protein, Apolipoprotein L-1 (APOL1), that sticks to the parasite and kills it.<\/p>\n

The primary challenge, however, was in the delivery method of the protein. They had a protein that could kill cancer cells in the bloodstream, but no reliable way to send it to the right target.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround that time, bispecific antibodies were starting to show real momentum\u2014especially in the context of redirecting T-cells and progress being made in multiple myeloma,\u201d Cipriano said.<\/p>\n

Bispecific antibodies are engineered antibodies that can bind to two different targets at once. They were already being used to guide immune cells directly to cancer cells\u2014so why not use them to bind the cancer-killing protein and the cancer cell it was targeting?<\/p>\n

They had their delivery system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose developments, plus our core problem\u2014delivery and specificity\u2014converged with what we already had and made the bispecific approach feel like the obvious solution,\u201d Cipriano said.<\/p>\n

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By engineering this bispecific antibody, naturally occurring good cholesterol that carry APOL1 is attracted to one end of the antibody, while the other end is seeking out the protein receptor of the cancer cell. Once both have been attached, the HDLs work to destroy the cancer cell from the inside.<\/p>\n

With a new way forward and an idea of how to progress the research, the team met every week to replicate results from DeJesus\u2019 initial experiments. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, they secured small but impactful grants that sustained them while preparing to apply for a federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant.<\/p>\n

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The Year of Pitching Annate<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There was just one small hurdle to clear before applying: What would they call the company?<\/p>\n

They wanted to honor Ann while reflecting on the technology\u2019s core component of harnessing APOL1 in the human innate immune system. The two ideas came together in the name \u201cAnnate.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the help of Innovation Gateway<\/a>, UGA\u2019s technology commercialization and startup support arm, the company was fully formed and the intellectual property secured.<\/p>\n

Smaller grants funded early experiments. Collaborations with clinicians and researchers at Emory\u2019s Winship Cancer Institute showed the work could be expanded beyond multiple myeloma, a liquid tumor, into solid tumors such as pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n

Each round of data and every expert encountered reinforced the same message: The approach was novel, untested, and potentially transformative.<\/p>\n

By 2024, the company was sustaining itself on grants that were becoming more competitive as the economy and private investment attempted to bounce back from the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the world that startups are in,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cWe\u2019re still driven by the technology and getting more data but it\u2019s time to start figuring out what it\u2019s like to go pitch and raise money from venture capital because grants are going to take too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_section css=”.vc_custom_1567710408463{background-color: #e4ddc7 !important;}” el_class=”fw-polygon”][vc_row equal_height=”yes” bg_type=”bg_color”][vc_column width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1567710326062{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;}” el_class=”polygon-wrapper”][vc_raw_html css=”.vc_custom_1773666486605{background-image: url(https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2026\/03\/UGA_Research_AnnateBiotherapeutics_2025_0065-scaled.jpg?id=75875) !important;}” el_class=”polygon”]JTNDJTIxLS1sZWF2ZSUyMHRoaXMlMjBlbXB0eS0tJTNF[\/vc_raw_html][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″ el_class=”polygon-content”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1773666988283{margin-top: -50px !important;border-top-width: 50px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}” el_class=”testimonial”]\u201cThat\u2019s the world that startups are in. We\u2019re still driven by the technology and getting more data but it\u2019s time to start figuring out what it\u2019s like to go pitch and raise money from venture capital because grants are going to take too long.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”” el_class=”credit”]<\/p>\n

\u2013 Eric DeJesus, cofounder and CEO of Annate Bitherapeutics<\/p>\n

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2025 became The Year of Pitching Annate.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first pitch practice was here in the Delta Innovation Hub,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cWe learned several things and applied for a larger event in April of 2025. That was going to be our first event.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the first-ever Southeast Venture Showcase<\/a>, a premier pitch competition where innovators presented their most promising technologies to venture capital firms from across the nation.<\/p>\n

The Annate team spent several months leading up to the event paring their story down to an investor-ready pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re academics at heart,\u201d admitted DeJesus with a small chuckle. \u201cWe tell stories very differently than pitching to a business. Instead of 75% of the slides being data, you get one slide of data.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Two
Months of pitching practice paid off for Eric DeJesus, who won first prize in fall 2025 at the Field to Fund event, where startups from UGA and the University of Kentucky pitched to investors during the week of the schools’ football game. (Photo by Brandon Ward)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Through guidance and mentorship from the Innovation Gateway Startups team, Annate was able to hone their pitch.<\/p>\n

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Today, Annate operates with patience and realism. The team members have learned much from putting themselves out there throughout 2025. They won several pitch competitions and built on the feedback they received.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got better at being resilient, communicating the problem clearly, and being patient in understanding that this is not a fast process,\u201d DeJesus reflected. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take time.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeJesus likened the dynamic among the three founders to a person holding a helium balloon. He sees himself as the balloon, full of energy and pulling upward, ready to share the story with anyone and everyone. Hajduk is the steady hand on the string, helping to keep the balloon grounded with perspective and methodical thinking. Cipriano serves as the tether between the two, the conduit of vison and execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what 2026 has in store for us,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cI\u2019m still writing grants. I\u2019m still pitching. I\u2019m still sending emails.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a struggle, though. The team must fit in working on Annate while still having day jobs and other responsibilities. This means many nights and weekends are sacrificed to push the company further and get the necessary funding to start human trials.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost irresponsible at this point. If I give up just because I\u2019m tired\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He trailed off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the data says stop, we will stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until then, they\u2019ll press on in hopes that everyone, one day, has a chance to ring the damn bell.<\/p>\n

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”” el_class=”text-container first-paragraph”] It was 2019 when Eric DeJesus began pursuing his private pilot\u2019s certificate. Driven by a desire to learn new things, he found a new obsession above the clouds. When the school closed not long after due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, he pivoted and became a certified firefighter and paramedic to … <\/p>\n

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