“PDx pushes towards a world free of genetic disorders”

Over a decade ago I began my journey in neurogenetics, with an evolving passion to improve the everyday person’s life. As many in STEM, it leads to long nights and a unique mentality that accepts failure daily. As an undergraduate student, I found enjoyment with genetic schemes that led to novel transgenic organisms. In 2011, we published the first publication on the Alzheimer’s disease fruit fly (Drosophila) model. With this model, we had the capabilities to rapidly screen Alzheimer’s disease therapeutics such as Resveratrol to find that it increased the longevity and neuronal functions of the fly. To be in the fields of molecular biology and genetics became an innate curiosity for me. After performing research at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, I knew that a career in neurogenetics and molecular medicine was and still is, my passion.

My father used to always tell me, “The only thing I want for you, is for you to wake up and be excited to go to work.”. This statement became embedded into my mind as not to chase money or fame, but rather what keeps you excited for everyday going forward.

With this in mind, I ventured to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to research at the Brain Science Institute and ALS Packard Center with Dr. Jeffrey Rothstein. My research led to illustrating novel non-neuronal cells in the cortical brain that modulate neurons in neurological disorders, such as Norrie disease. With brain-penetrating nanoparticles I provided gene therapy to restore neuronal signaling.

To continue my research in neurodegeneration, I joined Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray’s laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine. My research advanced the realms of blood-brain-barrier demise in aging and as a primitive driver for the development of dementia. After finishing my post-doctoral studies at Stanford, I knew that all our therapies continue to fail for two major reasons: the heterogeneity of the population and therapeutic intervention after neuronal death, when it is too late.

This led me to focus all my energy on how to provide early disease detection prior to allow for early intervention, before neurons die. In 2019, Pluripotent Diagnostics (PDx) was founded in my Mountain View apartment in California on the sole mission to eliminate neurogenetic diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) by focusing on the specific patient to create the most comprehensive profiling to date.

To note, that over this decade I have been cited over 1,600 times in peer-reviewed scientific articles in regard to my cutting-edge research, two international patents for gene therapy and diagnostics, and funded directly by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other organizations.

PDx, like many startups, has been the most exciting rollercoaster of my entire life, both negative and positive. In my opinion, no startup is made in a day, but rather evolves and grows to a level mature enough to have a precise focus of their direct mission. For us, it started as a passion, not a product, but a passion to eliminate genetic disorders by providing patient-specific diagnostics and therapies.

Now, looking back, I emphasize to my highest degree, that the companies exact team members are crucial for the success of a company. Steve Jobs once said, “Don’t hire smarter people, and then tell them what to do”. PDx continues to move forward with this in mind and to the team’s success, PDx recently finalized its international patent on, “Methods to Detect Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis” by using an interdisciplinary approach of machine learning, genetics, and bioinformatics. Now, PDx is working with filing with the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for the first ever in vitro diagnostic (IVD) for ALS. This is a huge moment not only for PDx but for mankind. We have been advancing other neurodegenerative disorders into our modeling to create a multi-disease classifier for early disease detection.

PDx continues with three projects that perform in parallel. The three projects for each patient contain their genetics, clinical reports, and brain scans (MRI, PET). With this information PDx creates the most comprehensive profile for every patient that goes beyond just the genetics, clinical data, or brain scans. We are working to create the most sophisticated genotype to phenotype modeling by incorporating multiple disciplines such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, bioinformatics, and genetics.

My strong advice is to find your niche, one that makes you excited to get up every morning and tackle the day ahead.

When times get rough and they will, remember what Albert Einstein said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep balance, you must keep moving.” IE