BERKELEY, CA — Sift Biosciences is proud to announce that Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Yue Clare Lou has been awarded $1 million in non-dilutive seed funding through the HS Chau Women in Enterprising Science (WIES) Program at UC Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI). The award follows a year-long fellowship and pitch process and recognizes the commercial promise of Sift’s microbial peptide-based cancer immunotherapy platform.
Dr. Lou, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the Banfield lab at IGI, used the fellowship year to pivot from foundational microbiome research to mining human microbiome datasets as a source of novel immune-modulating peptides. Using an AI-driven computational pipeline, the team identified peptides that showed robust antitumor properties in vitro, forming the scientific foundation of Sift Biosciences.
“I realized that we have generated this incredible data platform we could use to develop various therapeutics from microbial peptides,” said Dr. Lou. “The idea we’re focusing on now is using peptides to essentially function as a vaccine against cancer.”
“The WIES program made me determined to start my own company and connected me with an amazing network of investors and female founders,” she added.
Sift Biosciences was co-founded in 2024 and has previously received an NVIDIA startup grant and been selected as part of the 2024 California Life Sciences FAST Cohort. The $1 million WIES award will allow the Sift team to advance their cancer vaccine peptides into animal models as they build out their preclinical framework.
Read the full announcement from the Innovative Genomics Institute here.
About Sift Biosciences
Sift Biosciences is a preclinical immunotherapy company developing immunomodulators that harness pre-existing memory T-cells to treat immune dysfunctions. Founded in 2024 as a UC Berkeley spin-out, Sift integrates AI and high-throughput T-cell screening to mine billions of microbial proteins for motifs that activate antimicrobial memory T-cells and steer them toward tumor antigens, autoantigens, and other disease-relevant targets. The company’s initial focus is on oncology, with expanding pipelines in autoimmunity and immunosenescence.