During her medical training, Erica Barnell met a 52-year-old woman just diagnosed with stage-four colorectal cancer. Sadly, the disease hadn’t been caught sooner because the woman couldn’t take time off work for a colonoscopy.
Motivated to make early detection more accessible, Barnell partnered with her brother, Andrew Barnell WG17, and data analyst Yiming Kang to found Geneoscopy. The trio devised a screening methodology to non-invasively detect cancer and other conditions using RNA biomarkers in stool samples—and during his MBA studies, Barnell developed the company with support from Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship’s Summer Venture Award.
Geneoscopy’s second round of funding raised $1 million, and its third clinical trial will enroll more than 1,000 patients. For the 70 million Americans affected by digestive diseases each year, the future looks healthier.
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