clinical-metagenomics
(2)
Karius
Karius is a Redwood City, California life-sciences company that turns a single blood draw into a broad infectious-disease diagnosis. Its flagship Karius Test uses microbial cell-free DNA (mcfDNA) sequencing, metagenomics and AI to detect more than 1,000 pathogens - bacteria, DNA viruses, fungi and parasites - often within a day of receiving a sample. Founded in 2014 out of Stephen Quake's lab at Stanford, the company aims to give clinicians a fast, non-invasive alternative to invasive biopsies and slow cultures, with a focus on the immunocompromised patients who need answers most urgently.
Niamh O'Hara
Niamh O'Hara is the co-founder and CEO of Biotia, a New York healthtech company that pairs next-generation DNA sequencing with AI to identify pathogens causing hard-to-diagnose infections. An evolutionary biologist by training, she spun the company out of Cornell Tech with Weill Cornell geneticist Christopher Mason, runs a CLIA-certified metagenomics lab in Long Island City, and is building what she calls a global microbial sequence database to catch outbreaks before they spread.