How an idea born on a plane grew into a diagnostic breakthrough

Medical diagnostics has long faced a fundamental asymmetry: the detection of genetic material has relied on PCR technology, which amplifies even the smallest DNA sample into a recognisable signal. For proteins, no equivalent method has existed.

This has meant that many diseases — cancers, neurodegenerative conditions, cardiovascular diseases — go undetected until biomarker concentrations have risen high enough for conventional methods to pick up. The earliest molecular warning signs have remained invisible.

VTT Research Professor Jussi Hiltunen was involved in a cancer diagnostics research project in 2017. The flight from Oulu to Paris gave him time to think. He began to sketch out whether the diagnostic problem could be approached on an entirely different principle from the one being pursued in the ongoing project.

"I had formed a sense of what kind of solution was needed. On the plane I started thinking about whether it could be done differently. On the way back to Oulu I wrote myself some notes," Hiltunen recalls.

His idea was a mechanism based on physical amplification — one that would read a single protein molecule repeatedly, without enzymes and the noise and variability they introduce. It was an ambitious concept that required experimental validation.

Hiltunen contacted Prateek Singh at the University of Oulu. Singh had an ongoing research project with VTT and therefore access to VTT’s laboratories. He also had biochemical expertise that experimental development of the technology required. The exchange of ideas between the two researchers, combined with hands-on experimental work, began to shape the original concept into something concrete. A joint invention disclosure was filed together with the University of Oulu and VTT.

"I had a background in photonics and electrical engineering. Prateek brought biotechnology expertise. The key advance was combining these with a physical approach," Hiltunen explains.

The patent application progressed surprisingly smoothly, and patents were granted in both the United States and Europe. The technology now had protection, but the inventors lacked the resources to take it to the next stage.

"Once the patent was in place, the search for funding began. We applied from several sources, but it was hard going. The concept was new and unproven, and funders would have needed to take it on trust that the technology would work," Hiltunen recalls.

In spring 2021, Hiltunen and Singh decided to try once more, but neither could find the time. VTT Senior Scientist Sanna Aikio stepped in and took on the application.

The target was the European Innovation Council’s EIC Pathfinder Open programme, which funds high-risk, high-impact scientific research and novel, as-yet-unproven technology concepts. The programme is highly competitive and the bar for funding exceptionally high.

"Late one Monday evening, word came through that the project had been funded. Miracles do sometimes start on Mondays," Aikio says.
The funding was €800,000. The VerSiLiB project launched in April 2022.

At the heart of the technology developed in the project is a digital chip on which a blood sample is divided into thousands of tiny reaction chambers. In each chamber, a simple binary result is measured: a reaction either occurs or it does not. By calculating the ratio of positive to negative chambers, a precise reading of how much of a target analyte is present in the sample is obtained.

Conventional methods amplify a protein’s signal chemically. Chemical reactions generate background noise that interferes with the reading. The method developed in the project is physical: the same protein molecule is read repeatedly, allowing the signal to grow without interference being introduced into the measurement.

"This is the decisive difference. When amplification is based on physics rather than chemistry, you reach an entirely new level of sensitivity. The method works for both proteins and DNA, and makes it possible to measure biomarkers from a blood sample," Aikio explains.

The first clinical target chosen was minimal residual disease in melanoma patients. In this situation, a tumour has been surgically removed, but it would be critical for the patient and the clinical team to establish whether cancer cells remain in the body. Developing diagnostics to meet this need demands precisely the kind of extreme sensitivity the new method offers.

From the outset, the destination was clear, but the route was not. The project required new solutions to be invented along the way. The chip’s structure, for instance, required a manufacturing approach that had not previously existed. Getting the tiny reaction chambers to work also meant developing new methods for handling microscopic fluid flows.

The multidisciplinary consortium brought together an unusual combination of physicists, chemists, engineers and clinicians.

"What has driven the project forward extraordinarily well is that everyone has approached it with an open mind. There has been a genuine will to understand and solve problems together, to bring your own ideas to the table. Psychological safety has been important – the sense that everyone can propose something half-formed or unconventional," Aikio says.

The thinking paid off. The project generated multiple invention disclosures, patents and know-how documentation along the way.

Very early on — at the project’s kick-off meeting, in fact — the question was raised of how the development work might continue after the project ended. In practice, the answer took shape as the project progressed. Prateek Singh began to consider commercialising the idea.

"At some point we realised we had probably developed something valuable. A new company started to take shape as an idea. That was when we began packaging the results and thinking through how the IP could be transferred," Hiltunen says.

Proteins.1 was founded in summer 2025 and joined the VerSiLiB project as a partner in autumn 2025. VTT’s IP was invested in the company as an in-kind contribution. The process was multi-staged: transferring intellectual property from an ongoing EU project proved possible but required careful planning and execution. The team led by Pauli Laitinen, handling VTT’s in-kind investments, worked together with IPR Manager Jari Rantala to manage the practical implementation, which had to be carried out in strict accordance with the funding and consortium agreements.

In spring 2026, Proteins.1 announced a €4.7 million pre-seed round led by Lifeline Ventures and Cloudberry VC. The company plans to expand its team in Finland in 2026–2027 and will initially commercialise the technology for research use in oncology, neurology and immunology before moving into clinical diagnostics.

VTT’s involvement with this technology does not end here. The diagnostic method is inherently versatile: the same principle can be applied wherever proteins or DNA need to be detected. Beyond medicine, promising application areas include environmental diagnostics and food safety.

VTT’s interest lies in how the same technology can be made to work outside medicine, in environmental and food samples. That calls for development across detection hardware, sample pre-processing and recognition chemistry.

"If everything goes as planned — and we have good reason to believe it will — this could transform how diseases are treated. We have in our hands a highly sensitive diagnostic tool that reads both proteins and DNA, telling us about the state of the body before symptoms have appeared. That has significant implications for society," Aikio says.

VerSiLiB project 
(Versatile Amplification Method for Single-Molecule Detection in Liquid Biopsy) is an EIC Pathfinder Open-funded EU project (€800,000), launched in April 2022 and concluded in March 2026. The project developed an enzyme-free, physically amplified diagnostic method enabling the detection of protein and DNA analytes at the single-molecule level. Project coordinator: Sanna Aikio, VTT. 
versilib.eu (grant agreement 101046217)

Proteins.1 
is a Finnish deep-tech company founded in summer 2025. Proteins.1 commercialises ultra-sensitive protein diagnostics technology based on research conducted at VTT. Pre-seed funding €4.7 million (Lifeline Ventures, Cloudberry VC). Patents granted in the United States and Europe; further international applications pending. 
proteins1.com