From Microbes to Momentum: How Cerillo Is Revolutionizing Scientific Research with Agility and Insight

An interview with Eric Mayton, CEO of Cerillo | As featured on the Life Sciences Decoded podcast

Scientific research is moving faster than ever, and so is the need for tools that match that pace. On a recent episode of Life Sciences Decoded, we sat down with Eric Mayton, CEO of Cerillo, a company that's making waves with its innovative platform for microbial research and beyond.

Cerillo is a bio-tools company based in Charlottesville, Virginia, spun out of the University of Virginia. While small in size, just ten employees, Cerillo’s reach spans nearly 30 countries, thanks to a nimble business model, powerful partnerships, and a bold mission: to make research more reproducible, scalable, and flexible.

What’s Broken in Scientific Research?

According to Mayton, one of the major pain points in scientific research is the inability to study real-world microbial interactions with accuracy and speed. “Microbes don’t live in isolation, but we’ve been studying them as if they do,” he says. “It’s hard to control the thousands of variables that affect microbial behavior, and wet lab validation has been too expensive, too slow, and too complex.”

Cerillo’s solution? Miniaturized hardware, intuitive software, and a novel consumable that together create a platform for real-time, high-throughput experimentation, without the overhead of traditional systems.

The Duet System: Rethinking Microbial Interactions

One of Cerillo’s most innovative offerings is the Duet system, a plastic consumable that lets scientists study microbial interplay in a shared environment while keeping organisms physically separate using a semipermeable membrane. It’s a deceptively simple innovation with game-changing impact.
Mayton shares the story of a hospital-affiliated researcher investigating antibiotic-resistant syphilis cases post-COVID. Using just one Duet tray, the researcher tested various combinations of microbes and pinpointed the single species responsible for resistance, something that would have taken weeks using conventional tools. That discovery is now guiding more targeted therapies and reducing the unnecessary use of broad-spectrum antibiotics.

From Yogurt to Bioreactors

The use cases don’t stop at healthcare. “We have customers using the Duet for biofuel development, alcoholic fermentation, and even probiotic research in yogurt manufacturing,” says Mayton. “Our platform meets scientists where they are, whether they’re at the bench or scaling up for production.”
The key to this flexibility? Everything fits in a briefcase. Cerillo’s field kits are shipped globally, enabling partners to demonstrate, deploy, and support without an army of application specialists. Most users can go from unboxing to collecting data in under ten minutes.

Punching Above Their Weight

So how does a 10-person company compete in a space dominated by giants? Agility. “We’re able to take real feedback from customers and rapidly iterate,” says Mayton. “It’s not about the size of your R&D team—it’s how fast you can get the right tools into the right hands.”

Cerillo also emphasizes self-service and support. Their online Help Center, born from support ticket trends and FAQ analysis, ensures users can find what they need quickly. “It’s about empowering scientists to move at the speed of their ideas,” Mayton explains.

AI in the Lab: Hype or Help?

Mayton acknowledges that AI is everywhere, but it’s important to understand how and where it fits. “Large language models are great for speeding up documentation, protocol generation, and customer support,” he notes, “but they can’t make scientific decisions.” Instead, Cerillo is exploring other AI models, like Bayesian optimization, for real-time experimental design and autonomous science.

Myth-Busting the Bio-Tools Market
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As we wrapped up, Mayton addressed a common myth in the scientific tools space: “Just because you’ve built a cool product doesn’t mean people will adopt it. You have to connect the dots, show the customer how it fits into their workflow and why it matters.” Cerillo’s success lies not just in what they’ve built, but in how well they’ve listened, adapted, and supported their users.

From Bench to Breakthrough

Cerillo’s story is a compelling reminder that innovation doesn’t require a sprawling team or massive infrastructure. Sometimes, it just takes a smart system in a suitcase—and the will to meet scientists where they are.