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ULTRA-EARLY CANCER DETECTION

Your cells emit light.
We learned to read it.

No blood draw. No biopsy. No radiation.

Cancer is caught too late.

Every 60 seconds, the U.S. loses one person to cancer. Not because treatments fail, but because they start too late.

>90%
5-year survival
when caught early
~30%
5-year survival
when caught late

The problem isn't timing. It's what we can see.

GROWTH 01 / 9

Before the first change

The story begins with a few normal cells.

Scroll to watch it grow

Three separate normal-appearing cells.
Before the first change

The story begins with a few normal cells.

The same cells; one nuclear/lineage cue begins to appear.
A single cell changes

A single cell acquires a driver mutation: a DNA change that can give it a growth advantage.

Four descendants of the altered cell form a small cluster.
The change is passed on

Now we follow the altered cell’s descendants as they inherit the change and divide.

Additional altered descendants appear.
The cluster grows

Repeated divisions build a larger cluster of related cells.

A rounded, dense aggregate represents premalignant growth.
A precancerous cluster

The growing cluster becomes more crowded and disorganized.

Dense mass without visible new vessels.
Growth needs a blood supply

As the mass grows, oxygen can become scarce inside. Cells can send signals that encourage new blood vessels to grow.

First fine vessels are visibly present.
A blood supply supports growth

New blood vessels grow around the mass, supplying oxygen and nutrients that support further growth.

First cells visibly extend beyond the former main-mass contour into nearby tissue.
Growth into nearby tissue

With further changes, cells can become cancerous and grow into nearby tissue.

Largest mass with vessels and local extension.
Standard imaging typically detects a tumor at ~1 cm.

Roughly 1 billion cells. By then, it's been growing silently for years.

We’re studying light for earlier signs of cancer.

The Science

Cancer has a light signature.

Cells emit very faint light during metabolism. In laboratory and animal studies, cancer and comparison cells showed differences in their light emissions. HelioFlux is investigating whether those differences could support earlier cancer detection.

Dr. Nirosha J. Murugan spent a decade building the technology that reads these signals.

Original cellular comparison image: normal-appearing cells with a smooth waveform on the left, and atypical cells with a variable waveform on the right.
An illustration of cellular light differences studied in laboratory models.

The Scan

We built the tool to read it.

We've built prototype devices and validated them in peer-reviewed studies. Now we're developing the clinical version.

A patient sits in a dark room for about 15 minutes. A sensor reads the faint light coming off their body. AI analyzes the signal. Same visit, same day.

No blood draw. No biopsy. No radiation.

Two systems. One signal.

QSense artwork showing cell clusters within a field of curved sensing lines.

Hardware

QSense™

A sensor array sensitive enough to count individual photons from living tissue. Non-invasive, radiation-free, and designed to detect cancer signals before a tumor forms.

Functional prototype, ready for human studies

LuminAI artwork showing a luminous signal trace and surrounding wave patterns.

Software

LuminAI™

AI trained on a decade of cell and animal data. Processes roughly a million data points per scan, distinguishing healthy tissue from cancer in real time.

Fully developed, integrated with hardware

"These sensors were inspired by technology built to detect faint light from distant stars. We pointed them at the faint light coming off the human body, and built an AI that uses it to read the state of your cells and tell healthy tissue from cancer."

Dr. Nirosha J. Murugan, Interim CEO, Chief Scientist & Co-Founder

Explore the published research →
Dr. Nirosha Murugan at the microscope

What It Can Detect

Proven in the lab.
Heading to humans.

Valley Breast Care and Women's Health Center team
IRB Study In Development

Breast Cancer
Detection

HelioFlux is preparing an IRB study for breast cancer detection with Dr. Tom Lomis, a world-renowned cancer oncologist and surgeon, to evaluate how ultra-weak photon emissions may support earlier, non-invasive detection.

HelioFlux skin cancer detection device render
Featured · Human Study In Preparation

Skin Cancer
Detection

90-92% accuracy across multiple cancer cell lines in cell cultures and animal models. Cancer signals detected within 24 hours; physical tumors weren't visible for another 18 days. First human study targeting Q4 2026 with a Beverly Hills dermatology partner.

Dr. Murugan fitting photon-sensing helmet on research subject
Published · 2025 · Cell Press

Brain
Health

World's first study to read light patterns from human brains. Published in iScience (Cell Press) in 2025, light emissions around the heads of living people were detected while their brain waves were measured by EEG. The same platform is now being used to monitor brain health after chemotherapy and concussions.

The team behind
the technology.

Dr. Nirosha J. Murugan
Dr. Nirosha J. Murugan
Interim CEO, Chief Scientist & Co-Founder

She earned her Ph.D. in Biomolecular Sciences at Laurentian University, Canada, where she pioneered the quantum-sensor-based cancer detection technology now commercialized through HelioFlux. As a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Michael Levin's lab at the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, she advanced ion-channel bioelectricity as a mechanism of tissue patterning and co-developed a drug delivery system to induce limb regeneration in non-regenerative animals.

Meet the full team →

Featured In

Scientific American Radiolab Cell Press CBC News LA Business Journal
Read press coverage →

Partner Program

NVIDIA Inception Program

The science works.
The next step is human data.

Ten years of published research. Validated in cells, animals, and living human subjects. We're raising a pre-pilot round for our first IRB-approved human study.

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© 2026 HelioFlux Inc. All rights reserved. HelioFlux is an R&D-stage technology and is not FDA cleared.
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