Kayyem

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Jon Faiz Kayyem

Founder

Clinical Micro Sensors

Age: 34

Technology developed by Jon Faiz Kayyem and his Pasadena-based start-up, Clinical Micro Sensors, could wind up doing for DNA tests what Crown did for books.

The 34-year-old Kayyem, who holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Yale University and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Cal Tech, began Clinical Micro Sensors in his garage in 1995. After two years and $8.5 million from investors and government grants, his firm employs 20 and occupies 10,000 square feet of industrial office space.

“He is a future creator; he’s a visionary because of his perseverance to make a difference with his device,” said Susan Forte, vice president of the Technolink Association. “He has business savvy besides being an inventor.”

Ahmed Enany, executive director of the Southern California Biomedical Council, agreed that Kayyem is motivated and dedicated to turning the device into “something commercializable.”

Kayyem’s product, a DNA testing device tentatively called the HybriSENSOR, is slated to be rolled out next year. Capitalizing on postdoctoral research performed by himself and colleague Thomas Meade, Kayyem’s device uses a microchip driven by a sensor coated with a metal that produces a source of electrons in DNA. It’s a far less complex machine than the laser-driven devices currently used, and is designed not to require the onerous purification process required of blood samples in order to eliminate false results. “It’s just really cheap and easy to make,” Kayyem said.

As a result, HybriSENSORs could range from desktop size to one as small as a cellular phone, compared to the workbench-sized machines now used for testing DNA in such applications as screening blood samples for diseases. It’s also cheaper perhaps a tenth the cost of current devices, which run as much $400,000. Per-test costs could be pared to under $50, a quarter of the cost of a typical DNA-based test for AIDS. “At that price point, the technology should allow us high margins,” Kayyem said.

The journal Scientific American gushed over the potential of the new devices, postulating that “No doctor’s office, no farm, no kitchen may be without one.”

Although Kayyem has published more than a half-dozen research papers on the technology, he does not appear wistful about putting an entrepreneurial emphasis on his research. “I wanted to make new tools, and that’s much more likely to occur in industry than academia,” he said.

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