NC State
VenturePack Challenge
Selected for 2nd place award winner and Audience Choice Award at the NCSU VenturePack Challenge in 2026.
Engineered living medicine · pre-clinical
Filter the Forever
PFAS get into people and then they stay. We're building a probiotic you swallow that catches them in your gut and carries them out, so the stuff doesn't keep circling back.
- 97%
- of Americans carry measurable PFAS in their blood serumCDC / NHANES
- 45%
- of sampled U.S. tap water contained at least one PFAS compoundUSGS, 2023
- 3–7 yrs
- serum half-life of PFOA and PFOS in the human bodypublished estimates
- 0
- approved therapeutics that reduce PFAS body burdenthe opening
Supported by / As seen on:VenturePack at NCSU•Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNC Chapel Hill/NC State University•Innovate Carolina•1789 Student Venture Fund at UNC CH•
01 — The science
PFAS don't break down. They circulate.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances bind serum proteins and re-enter the gut through bile, where they are reabsorbed rather than excreted. That loop is why exposure measured once persists for years.
Cualli interrupts the loop at the lumen. A colonizing probiotic chassis presents high-affinity binding domains for long-chain PFAS, holds them through transit, and leaves with the stool.
- Enterohepatic recirculation
- Fluorophilic binding
- Fecal clearance
02 — The platform
Three steps, one dose.
Colonization
Engraftment without displacement
The strain is selected for transient-to-stable engraftment in the colon at doses compatible with a daily capsule, without outcompeting resident commensals. Colonization is dose-dependent and reversible on withdrawal.
Containment by design
Auxotrophy and kill-switch logic bound the strain's persistence outside the gut.
Measured, not assumed
Clearance read out by LC-MS/MS on stool and serum across a dosing window.
A platform, not a product
Swap the binding domain and the same chassis addresses other persistent xenobiotics.
03 — The team
Three people, one loop to break.
Biomedical engineering and synthetic biology out of UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State.
Alex
Co-founder · CTO
Chinmay
Co-founder · CFO
Osvaldo
Co-founder · CEO
04 — News / the landscape
Nothing about this
is solved yet.
Regulation is arriving, litigation is settling, filtration is improving. None of it removes what people already carry. This is the record we work against.
- 001North Carolina secures $455 million PFAS settlement from Chemours, DuPont and CortevaWRALSeptember 2026Litigation
- 002EPA moves to rescind four PFAS drinking-water limits and push PFOA/PFOS compliance to 2031U.S. EPAMay 2026Rollback
- 003Forever chemicals found in 98.8% of more than 10,500 blood samplesJ. Occ. & Env. HygieneMay 2026Biomonitoring
- 004Gut microbes soak up PFAS and carry them out in feces — 25% to 74% within minutesNature MicrobiologyJuly 2025Cambridge
- 005Court approves 3M’s $10.3 billion settlement with more than 11,000 public water systemsC&EN2024Litigation
- 006Rising PFAS in human serum correlates with elevated blood lipid levelsUNC / NC State / DukeFeb 2026Health effects
- 007PFAS detected in roughly 45% of U.S. tap water samples nationwideUSGS2023Exposure
- 008We haven’t found a way to destroy PFAS — the gap is getting them out of peopleUKRIJuly 2025Analysis
Sourced coverage — links open at the publisher
05 — Awards
Backed, funded, and on stage.
Recognition from the programs that put early biotech in front of a room.
UNC-Chapel Hill
1789 Student Venture Fund
Investment and workspace from UNC's student-run venture fund at the 1789 space.
UNC / NC State
Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
Research support and lab access through the joint BME department.
Innovate Carolina
Innovate Carolina
Venture programming and mentorship through UNC's innovation hub.