Stanford students’ ColoTech wins NCI Debut Prize for a noninvasive colorectal cancer screening concept

Team ColoTech, a group of Stanford biomedical‑engineering alumni, described a prize‑winning concept for a noninvasive colorectal cancer screening test during an episode of the National Cancer Institute podcast Inside Cancer Careers. The team won the NCI Technologies for Cancer Prevention, Diagnosis, or Treatment Prize as part of the 2024 Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (Debut) Challenge.

ColoTech is framed by its developers as an oral, enteric‑coated pro‑diagnostic: a compound in a pill that travels through the gastrointestinal tract, reaches the colorectal region when the coating dissolves, and—if it encounters a hypoxic tumor microenvironment—undergoes a chemical change that can be detected in stool. Team members said the approach aims to identify tumor‑associated oxygen deprivation rather than rely on endogenous biomarkers such as blood or DNA fragments.

The team presented ColoTech as intended to address gaps they identify in current screening options. They said some noninvasive tests, including existing stool and blood tests like Cologuard, may be contraindicated or less informative for high‑risk groups (for example, people with inflammatory bowel disease, prior cancers or strong family histories) because background inflammation and tissue turnover can raise signal‑background noise. ColoTech’s developers say their exogenous, hypoxia‑triggered compound is intended to improve specificity and to be affordable and widely distributable.

Status and next steps: the students said the work to date is at proof‑of‑concept stage using an experimental molecule; they reported having filed a provisional patent and are seeking fundraising to support more robust in vitro and in vivo testing and to build a library of compound variants to optimize specificity. They also described having clinical mentorship from a gastroenterologist who works on dysplasia detection and who was supportive of a noninvasive screening step that might precede endoscopy.

What the team did not claim: the group explicitly said they have not yet measured clinical sensitivity or demonstrated performance in human patients. They described the current compound as proof of concept and said further laboratory and animal testing would precede any clinical evaluation.

Why it matters: colorectal cancer screening prevents deaths when tumors are detected early, but many screening modalities face barriers—cost, access, contraindications for high‑risk patients and the invasive nature of colonoscopy. A broadly affordable, noninvasive screen that works for groups excluded from existing noninvasive tests could change screening pathways, but that possibility will depend on clinical validation and regulatory review.

The developers said their immediate priorities are fundraising, expanding chemical libraries to improve specificity, and conducting in vitro and in vivo studies. The team noted that their work originated in a Stanford senior capstone using the Biodesign process (roughly 10 weeks of ideation followed by prototyping), and that the Debut Challenge application took advantage of materials already developed for course presentations.

The National Cancer Institute episode that featured the team described the prize and provided the team’s contact and NCI resources for listeners who want more information. The episode also included a separate announcement inviting submissions to the 13th Symposium on Global Cancer Research with a submission deadline of 01/17/2025.

Next procedural steps the team announced are fundraising and preclinical testing; they did not announce any clinical trials or regulatory filings. The team said they currently hold a provisional patent.