# Omphalos Lifesciences Inc

> Omphalos Lifesciences is a Dallas-based biotech software company building a programmable virtual cell platform. Founded by computational biologist Daehwan Kim - creator of the widely used HISAT and TopHat sequencing tools - the company created L++, a high-level programming language that lets biologists describe, simulate, and visualize living systems the way software engineers write code. Its Life Designer platform aims to accelerate drug discovery, precision medicine, and biomanufacturing by running experiments in silico before they hit the lab bench.

- **Founded:** 2021
- **Headquarters:** Dallas, Texas, United States
- **Founders:** Daehwan Kim (Co-CEO, Founder), Donghoon Lee (Co-Founder, Co-CEO)
- **Team size:** 5-50 employees (Apollo lists ~5; other directories list 11-50)
- **Products:** L++ (Life Programming Language), Life Designer, OmVisim, Virtual E. coli
- **Notable:** Founder Daehwan Kim created HISAT, HISAT2, TopHat, and Centrifuge - sequence-analysis tools cited over 75,000 times and used across genomics worldwide., Invented L++, described as the first high-level programming language for biology., Released the first working virtual organism, a programmable virtual E. coli.

## Products & services

- **L++ (Life Programming Language)** — A high-level programming language for biology that lets researchers describe, program, and simulate biological systems - conceived as a human-readable alternative to raw DNA, analogous to how C++ abstracted machine code.
- **Life Designer** — A digital bio-operating system that enables biologists to model, simulate, and visualize complex biosystems for drug discovery, precision medicine, biomanufacturing, and education.
- **OmVisim** — A life-programming and development environment - an IDE for the L++ language used to design, simulate, and visualize virtual life forms.
- **Virtual E. coli** — The company's first virtual organism, released iteratively - Version 0.1 modeled a single cell, later versions add populations, growth rates, and perturbations, working toward 100+ modeled biological processes.

## Achievements

- Founder Daehwan Kim created HISAT, HISAT2, TopHat, and Centrifuge - sequence-analysis tools cited over 75,000 times and used across genomics worldwide.
- Invented L++, described as the first high-level programming language for biology.
- Released the first working virtual organism, a programmable virtual E. coli.
- Accepted into the NVIDIA Inception program.
- Selected for BARDA-backed support via MATTER's Paratus Digital Health Accelerator.

## Latest updates

- **2025-12** — Secured BARDA support (via MATTER's Paratus accelerator) to simulate pathogen-agnostic antimicrobial strategies against hospital-acquired pathogens.
- **2025-06** — Joined the NVIDIA Inception program to scale its programmable virtual cell.
- **2025-06** — Named among the newest members of the MATTER health startup community.
- **2023-11** — Released Virtual E. coli Version 0.1, the company's first virtual organism.
- **2023-09** — Published 'Biology Becomes Programming', outlining the vision behind the L++ language.

## Links

- Website: https://omphaloslifesci.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/omphalos-lifesciences-inc
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChSEPXH0S83T6IzCbMdzzWQ

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/omphalos-lifesciences-inc
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Last updated: 2026-07-18