Our Founding Story
BioSens8's founders have deep technical roots where years of impact guided research have culminated into the startup it is today. Explore their journey to better understand the key founders and what they're building.
Uroš Kuzmanović, PhD
"I'm working to change the way we approach healthcare by empowering people with insight into our body's health state. I want to change the dynamic between ourselves, physicians, and insurance companies with technology I've spent years engineering".
2009 - 2013
UIUC - College Of Liberal Arts And Sciences
To understand how the living world around him works Uroš began his journey studying Molecular and Cellular Biology and Chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He much preferred hands-on work over traditional learning and got involved in Prof. Hergenrother's research lab early on finding a myotonic dystrophy type I (DM1) small molecule inhibitor.
2012
International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM)
It was during his time leading an iGEM team where Uroš had a lightbulb moment realizing the power of engineering microbes. This year-long synthetic biology competition sparked Uroš's passion to create global impact on healthcare related issues. He and the UIUC team worked on RNA scaffolds expanding upon the work of Pam Silver from Harvard University. He also lead the team in the entrepreneurship division, hosted for the first time, which exposed him to the possibility of commercializing novel research.
2013 - 2014
Energy BioScience Institute (EBI)
To expand his microbial engineering skillset, Uroš joined the Prof. Yong-Su Jin & Dr. Soo Rin Kim lab. There he metabolically engineered S. cerevisiae and deployed NGS techniques with the goal of creating more efficient cellulosic bioethanol production strains. It was a technical foundation for the work which laid ahead of him.
2014 - 2022
Boston University - Department Of Biomedical Engineering
Wanting to create tangible and impactful change Uroš pivoted his studies to Biomedical Engineering at Boston University and pursued his passion for engineering microbes. There he met Prof. James Galagan and immediately clicked with his vision of mining microbes to engineer novel biosensors. From 2015 on, he worked on our ability to know our body's current health state during his PhD.
James Galagan, PhD
Dr. Galagan has worked at the nexus of engineering, biology, genomics and computer science for over 20 years. His unique interdisciplinary background established the foundation for developing the combination of technologies powering BioSens8.
1994 - 1999
MIT - Department of Neuroscience
James finished a B.S. in Computer and Electrical Engineering from UC Davis which established a lifelong desire to engineer practical solutions to real problems. While working as an engineer at Intel, learning to scuba dive also sparked a fascination with the natural world. This led him back to graduate school and a PhD from MIT in Computational Neuroscience, where he learned to integrate technology and machine learning with experimental biology.
1998 - 2012
MIT - Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research
MIT & Harvard - Broad Institute
He then joined the Human Genome project and worked for 14 years at the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research which became the Broad Institute. As the Associate Director for Microbial Genome Analysis, he was instrumental in developing the foundational technologies for applying genomic technology to microbes for the first time.
2013 - Present
Boston University - College of Engineering
James then joined Boston University to establish a unique interdisciplinary lab rooted in his diverse background. He is currently a Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Bioinformatics and the Director of the BU Precision Diagnostic Center. The Galagan lab pioneered genomic mining of microbes for proteins which are then engineered into electronic biosensor devices and deployed in a range of applications. Early support for this innovative work was provided by DARPA, with subsequent funding from the DOD, NIH, NSF, Coulter, DASA, and the Kilachand foundation. To this effort, Dr. Galagan has attracted an interdisciplinary collaboration of multiple labs at BU. From the very start, the goal of this effort was to develop practical solutions that would be translated into the real world.
BioSens8, Inc.
Mining microbes to enable personalized health monitoring. Join in on building out our vision!
2020
Boston, MA
After years of engineering novel biosensors Uroš and James decided it was the right time to take the next natural step in creating impact - through commercialization. BioSens8 officially spun out of Boston University and incorporated at the end of 2020.
2023
Cambridge, MA
BioSens8 moved to The Engine in Cambridge, MA during the summer of 2023 continuing to build out out their deeptech and techbio innovation. There, a unique engineering playground, the team truly felt at home as they could do both their bio and hardware work under one roof. They send a big thank you to The Engine team for accepting them and making them feel so welcome right off the bat.
Present
Cambridge, MA
BioSens8 is looking to change the insight we have into our body's health state. Check out our exciting track record on the news page and reach out to learn more! If this vision resonates with you please reach out to help us build the future of healthcare!
