Metablify

Origin: St. Louis, MO | Grant Awarded: 2024 | Status: Active

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What is Metablify?

Metablify offers a revolutionary amplification technology for biochemicals, enabling the discovery of new medicines, biomarkers, and precision treatments.

Company Leadership

ALLEN HUBBARD

CO-FOUNDER & CtO

Allen is a Research Scientist at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, with expertise in bioinformatics and systems biology. He leads the development and optimization of LC-MS data processing algorithms.

IVAN BAXTER

Co-founder & CSO

Ivan is a Principal Investigator and Member at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. He oversees technology development at Metablify.

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LOUIS CONNELLY

CO-FOUNDER & LEAD PROGRAMMER

Louis is a Computation Scientist at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center with background in computational biology and bioinformatics. At Metablify, he supports the development, testing, implementation, and evaluation of LC-MS data processing algorithms.

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AirSeal CardioVascular

Origin: St. Louis, MO | Grant Awarded: 2024 | Status: Active

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What is AirSeal CardioVascular?

AirSeal CardioVascular is a medical diagnostic company revolutionizing the diagnosis and management of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and other cardiovascular conditions.

Company Leadership

MOHAMED ZAYED, md, pHD, MBA

CO-FOUNDER & CEO

Dr. Zayed is a surgeon-scientist, serial inventor and entrepreneur, and discovered the cFAS assay technology. He routinely manages patients at Barnes Jewish Hospital and Veterans Affairs and leads an NIH-funded research laboratory at WashU Medical School.

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sTEPHEN WU, phd, mba

Co-founder & CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER

Dr. Wu is trained as a bioengineer. He has extensive industry experience in health care and biotechnology through professional occupations in manufacturing, product development, and market analysis across major biotech and health care companies.

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RICHARD CLARK

Ceo

Mr. Clark has over 40 years of life science innovation leadership and entrepreneurial experience with start-ups and major corporations (Medtronic, Genentech). He has two successful exits and joined AirSeal from BioGenerator EIR program.

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ALLUMIN8

Origin: Springfield, MO | Grant Awarded: 2024 | Status: Active

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What is ALLUMIN8?

ALLUMIN8 is the first company to offer Orthopedic & Spine porous, 3D-printed hardware designed to diagnose, treat, and heal through the hardware to improve the global success rates in spine fusions.

Company Leadership

alyssa huffman

CEO

In 2009, driven by the life-altering complications her Diabetic Uncle and Quadriplegic Cousin faced following failed spine surgeries, Alyssa Huffman, then working as an Orthopedic / Spine / Biologics Distributor, began sketching what would later evolve into the A8 Integr8™ Porous Pedicle Screw System. These early designs not only laid the groundwork for the A8 Integr8 system but also inspired the creation of the entire Allumin8 hardware platform, rooted in the evolving research of bone and regenerative therapies. Over the past two decades, Alyssa has leveraged her extensive experience to consult with leading MedTech firms across a wide range of specialties, including Sales, Contracting, Distribution, Marketing, Product Development, and Leadership. Her expertise spans Medical Devices, Biologics, Capital Equipment, Robotics, and Pharmaceuticals, with a focus on driving growth, enhancing market share, and implementing acquisition strategies. Alyssa’s passion lies in addressing the complex challenges faced by patients, physicians, healthcare organizations, and insurance companies. She is dedicated to growing dynamic teams that unite healthcare communities in the development of cutting-edge medical devices, protocols, and techniques that actually solve problems for patients and surgeons. Her work emphasizes the importance of clinical evidence and innovation, all while maintaining a strong focus on commercialization and cost efficiency. Alyssa’s mission is to ensure that every solution developed not only meets the highest standards of clinical efficacy, but also contributes to the overall sustainability of the healthcare system.

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MaxFi

Origin: St. Louis, MO | Named Fellow: 2024 | Status: Active

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What is MaxFi?

MaxFi has developed a patented technology revolutionizing medical simulations and physician training by allowing doctors and medical students to experience life-like surgery without a living patient.

Company Leadership

ROBERT MILLS

CEO

Bob is a graduate of Texas Christian University and has extensive leadership experience including notable roles at renowned organizations, including Johnson and Johnson, Boston Scientific, and Mallinckrodt. Bob enriches Missouri’s entrepreneurial landscape with a wealth of knowledge and this collective expertise propels MaxFi as a leader in creating the most realistic training cadaver model globally. His strategic connections and collaborative efforts firmly position MaxFi as a dynamic contributor to Missouri’s forward-thinking entrepreneurial community...

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joss fernandez, md, facs

founder & chief medical officer

Joss is a cardiothoracic and vascular surgery specialist and brings over 21 years of medical expertise to MaxFi. A graduate of the University of Virginia, he completed his surgery training at Vanderbilt University and cardiothoracic surgery training at the University of Iowa in 2011. Board certified in cardiothoracic and vascular surgery, as well as endovascular therapies, Dr. Fernandez is the innovative inventor and founder of MaxFi..

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MARSfarm

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is MARSfarm?

There is a technological revolution occurring in the agricultural industry to ensure that humans will be able to sustainably feed our growing population in a changing climate. For over a century, U.S. farmers have learned the technical skills they need from vocational programs in secondary schools. Teachers working in these agriculture programs are desperate to bridge the growing disconnect between the technology being used in the industry and what is accessible to them.

MARSfarm brings ag-tech into the classroom by providing a platform for agricultural educators to give students early exposure to emerging industry practices and problems. Countertop-sized greenhouses designed for the classroom are the enabling hardware of this platform. Our software provides the ability to execute control sequences (called “recipes”) in these greenhouses and remotely monitor them. Consumable kits consisting of seeds, fertilizer, etc. are paired with “recipes” designed in partnership with pioneers of emerging agricultural technologies. This combination of equipment, software, and consumables will ensure that educators are always teaching industry-relevant skills that lead to valuable career education.

Company Leadership

Peter Webb

cEO

Peter Webb began his career working first as a database administrator and then in a business development role at Hussmann Corporation. Peter has also consulted for The Open Agriculture Initiative at the MIT Media Lab and served as the Director of Indoor Farming at The Yield Lab Institute where he mentored several startups in the IN2 program.

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Drew Thomas

coO

Drew Thomas comes from a background in engineering, manufacturing, and career technical education. After experiencing CTE training firsthand at Ranken Technical College, he spent his career programming CNC machines to serve the aerospace industry. This led to consulting opportunities for Quip and a teaching position at TechShop, a maker-space formerly in Cortex.

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Preventogen

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2021 | Status: Active

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What is Preventogen?

Prevent-Plus has just recently launched a groundbreaking technology into the medical and retail segments. Developed by a NASA Polymer Scientist and a world renowned Dermatologist from NYU, this new advanced infection prevention technology is a non-antibiotic, microbicidal liquid polymer that forms a protective film barrier over the skin. The microbicidal agent in the polymer kills microbes (bacteria, fungi and viruses) on contact, and then forms a flexible, organic, odorless and biodegradable barrier that protects the wound from harmful elements, such as water, dirt and germs. This flexible protective barrier also prevents oxygen entering the wound, lowering the pH and creating an optimal healing environment. This polymer contains NO antibiotics, which puts this technology in a whole new class of advanced infection prevention and wound healing. In a recently published prospective, randomized clinical study, the results were outstanding in the reduction of pin site infections in orthopedic trauma applications: – For patient-level analysis, 33.3% of patients in the control group experienced infection, while none of the patients in the PREVENTOGEN group experienced infection (0%) – For pin-level analysis, 23.3% were infected in the control group, while none (0%) were infected in the PREVENTOGEN group – The application of the PREVENTOGEN liquid polymer has shown its effectiveness in dramatically reducing the rate of pin-tract infections related to external fixation procedure With these new data, Prevent Plus is continuing to build evidence of this polymer’s potential as a new class of transformative therapeutic to prevent infection in areas with high un-met clinical need. Prevent Plus currently has two brands in the marketplace: PREVENTOGEN www.preventogen.com and DuraDerm SPORT www.duradermsport.com and are looking to expand their portfolio into animal health, acne treatment and environmental sterilization and decontamination.

Company Leadership

brad chartrand

ceo

Brad Chartrand is the Chief Executive Officer for parent company Prevent Plus and is responsible for Global growth of the Preventogen and DuraDerm SPORT. Mr. Chartrand has over 15 years of Medical Device experience in various Sales and Marketing leadership roles with Applied Medical, CR BARD and AngioDynamics. Prior to Mr. Chartrand’s Medical Device career, he played 8 years of professional hockey, spending five seasons with the Los Angeles Kings (NHL).

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joe thomure

Chairman

Joe Thomure is the Chairman and Managing Member of Prevent Plus and stepped out of retirement in 2018 due to his passion and earnest belief in Preventogen. A graduate of the U.S Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, Mr. Thomure was called to active duty in the U.S. Navy, during which time he was promoted twice in three years, and eventually received his honorable discharge, pending LCDR in 1977.

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Julie Morris

vice president of clinical research and product development

Julie Morris is the Vice President of Clinical Research and Product Development for Preventogen. Her responsibilities include KOL development and clinical studies. Julie has over 19 years of medical device experience including positions with Covidien, Medtronic, Smith & Nephew and various early stage start-ups where she demonstrated success in several commercial roles. Julie works with our KOL team on the advancement of Preventogen’s clinical research and data and has been a key driver for the advancement of infection prevention in wound care.

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Drug Design Methodologies

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2017 | Status: Active

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What is Drug Design Methodologies?

Drug Design Methodologies develops novel software to chemically optimize and accurately measure drug-target binding. By identifying and focusing resources upon the most promising candidates and eliminating problematic compounds that could exhibit off-target effects, we accelerate and de-risk drug development pipelines in both pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries while significantly lowering costs.

Company Leadership

Chris Ho

Owner

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BioTech

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Omniose

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2017 | Status: Active

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What is Omniose?

Omniose is an early-stage biotechnology company developing polysaccharide conjugate vaccines against serious bacterial threats using its proprietary bioconjugation platform.

They are expanding the range of bacterial targets that can be addressed with bioconjugate vaccines. Bioconjugation relies on single cells that simultaneously produce a polysaccharide antigen along with an engineered carrier protein and a conjugating enzyme to precisely link them together. This is a much simpler process than conventional chemical conjugation methods and has the potential to produce higher quality vaccines. However, the enzymes used for bioconjugation thus far could only address a limited range of bacterial targets.

Their platform enables the precise enzymatic attachment of virtually any bacterial polysaccharide (sugar) antigen to engineered carrier proteins within a single E. coli cell. Hence the name Omniose, “all sugars.”

Company Leadership

Christian Harding

Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Harding is the primary innovator and driver behind Omniose’s R&D activity and bioconjugation platform development. For more than five years, Dr. Harding has helped refine Omniose’s bioconjugation platform for use in developing bioconjugate vaccines against different bacterial threats. He has been awarded multiple federally funded SBIR and STTR grants, authored numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts in distinguished journals, and is the inventor of multiple issued Omniose patents.

Dr. Harding conducted his Postdoctoral Fellowship under Dr. Mario Feldman’s mentorship at Washington University in St. Louis focusing on microbial glycobiology. He earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from The Ohio State University and a B.S. from the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.

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Christine Szymanski

co-founder

Dr. Szymanski is a Professor at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and Associate Department Head of Microbiology at the University of Georgia. She has been exploring bacterial glycomics for three decades. She combines her expertise in food safety and animal health with novel therapeutic diagnostic platforms developed during her postdoctoral fellowship at the Naval Medical Research Center vaccine program, the key findings while employed at the National Research Council of Canada, and the translational advances during her tenure as an Alberta Innovates Technology Futures Scholar at the University of Alberta where she cofounded VaxAlta, a company creating glycoconjugate vaccines for livestock and human health applications.

Dr. Szymanski has published over 100 publications and has served as President of the Society for Glycobiology and President of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and has received the Peter Gallagher Memorial Glycomics Award for Contributions to Health and Medical Research.

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Roman Fleck, Ph.D., MBA

Chairperson

Dr. Fleck is the CEO of Janpix, which was recently merged into Centessa Pharmaceutical. He was previously a Venture Partner/Advisor to Medicxi after having been a Principal at Index Ventures Life Sciences, Medicxi’s predecessor company. He invested in and represented Index Ventures on the boards of GlycoVaxyn (sold to GSK), Versartis (NASDQ: VSAS), and Novocure (NASDQ: NVCR). Earlier at Index Ventures he was also involved with Funxional Therapeutics (sold to Boehringer Ingelheim) and Micromet (sold to Amgen). He started his career at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals in Connecticut where he led drug development projects in oncology, inflammation and cardiovascular disease, advancing several compounds from pre-clinical to clinical stage.

Dr. Fleck received a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from MIT as well as an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business. He has authored or co-authored numerous publications in prestigious journals as well as many issued patents.

Mario Feldman

Co-Founder & Scientific Advisory Board Member

Mario F. Feldman is a Professor of Molecular Microbiology in the Department of Molecular Microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine, in St Louis. He graduated with a B.S. in Biotechnology from the National University of Rosario, Argentina and received a Ph.D. from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He then held postdoctoral positions at the University of Basel and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland. Before joining Washington University, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta, Canada, where he cofounded VaxAlta, a spin-off company dedicated to livestock vaccines. Dr. Feldman’s current research focuses on the pathogenesis of the multi-drug resistant bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii. He is recognized for his work characterizing secretion systems, microbial glycans, and outer membrane vesicles. He has coauthored over 80 publications in prestigious journals and he has been awarded with multiple NIH grants.

Dr. Feldman is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He received the Canadian Institute of Health New Investigator Award.

Timothy Cooke, Ph.D., MBA

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Cooke has over thirty years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry with a focus on vaccines. He was previously CEO of NovaDigm Therapeutics, CEO of Mojave Therapeutics, COO at AVANT Immunotherapeutics, and SVP at Ology Bioservices. Prior to his leadership roles in the biotechnology industry, he held several positions at Merck establishing a global vaccine-focused marketing and sales organization.

Dr. Cooke has been the Biotechnology Industry Representative to the U.S. National Vaccine Advisory Committee since 2015. He is on the Advisory Board of Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) and is an observer on the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Vaccines and Antimicrobial Resistance. He was previously Co-Chair of the BIO Vaccine Policy Advisory Committee and was on the Incentives for Vaccines Working Group of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. Dr. Cooke was the Vaccine Industry Representative to the Working Group of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance during its formation in 2000.

Dr. Cooke has a Ph.D. in bio-organic chemistry and an M.B.A. from Columbia University and a B.S. from Saint Joseph’s University.

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BioTech

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Radiologics

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2016 | Status: Acquired

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What was Radiologics?

Radiologics developed FDA-compliant data management systems for medical imaging in clinical trials.

Radiologics was acquired by Flywheel Exchange in 2021.

Company Leadership

Daniel Marcus

President

Daniel has a B.S. in Biology and a PhD in Neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis. Daniel is also an Associate Professor at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology Washington University, and Director of the Neuroinformatics Research Group.

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Involved Industries

BioTech

Explore All Startups

Be a Part of the Movement

We champion extraordinary entrepreneurs to create positive change – for St. Louis and for the world. Join us by applying to our Global Startup Competition, becoming a financial supporter, volunteering your time or amplifying our message.

LEARN ABOUT THE COMPETITION

See How You Can Get Involved →