4.12.22-Health-Science-Startups-Volta-Labs

UDAYAN UMAPATHI: Hi, everyone. My name is Udayan. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Volta Labs. I was a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab in a group called Tangible Media. And the company was founded out of some of the work that came out of my graduate work, along with my co-founder, Will Langford, who's also from the MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms.

So as I was graduating from MIT, as I walked into labs at the MIT bioengineering department and abroad, what was clear was we've made tremendous advancements in sequencing and building all kinds of technologies to study and understand molecules. But what was startling was the way we manipulate samples. Specifically, fluids was archaic. And it was very clear that we had to build automation from the ground up for the 21st century biologist.

So the premise in which Volta operates is in DNA sequencing. So if you look at this curve that I'm showing you now, the blue line-- so you can see seven orders of magnitude drop in cost of sequencing. So you may all have seen this before. So this was possible because of billions of dollars of investments in the readout process of sequencing itself.

So that is the second chunk of the sequencing workflow that I'm showing you now. But if you notice carefully the green line, for the past decade or so, the cost of what is called sample prep has remained relatively static. And the reason for that is the innovation in sample prep, the process of converting a biological sample into something that can actually be sequenced, has-- it's not seen any real disruption. So this is where Volta comes in.

And so if you look at biology lab bench, or how sample prep is carried out, it's extremely complex. It's messy. Many machines are used. There's lots of plastic. There's lots of procedures, specific procedure, to be followed.

And so what Volta is doing is we are building a push button experience to simplify sequencing sample prep. And so the first product we are building to realize this vision is this benchtop machine that's roughly the size of a 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Obviously, I think in the life sciences industry, I think it's important that you innovate across the entire spectrum to provide an end-to-end solution. And so we have created a host of other solutions to go with the benchtop machine, a simple consumable. That is the second image that I'm showing you now. And what's very unique about this consumable is it can handle many types of samples, many types of chemistries, all on a single surface.

Obviously, you need software to control the instrument, and so forth. And so we are innovating and engineering across the spectrum in engineering, surface chemistry, molecular biology sequencing, and so on and so forth.

At the heart of this machine is disruptive new technology that I'm going to play out now. It revolves around manipulating fluids using electric fields on a flat, two-dimensional surface.

Traditionally, the way fluids are manipulated is with large, liquid-handling robots and robotic handlers, as you saw with Multiply Labs picture. We are creating a completely new approach to tackle manipulation of fluids.

So obviously, there exists prior technologies-- robotic liquid-handling devices and so on and so forth. The key value proposition, if you will, is we're building this really tiny, compact benchtop instrument that's easy to use and affordable.

The platform we're building is sequencing technology-agnostic. If you look at sequencing sample prep-- that is, the process of extracting DNA RNA from different types of samples cell lines-- blood, saliva, and so on and so forth-- and then once the DNA and RNA is out of the sample, you may want to polish it and prepare it for sequencing. And so there is a series of those steps for different sequencing technologies, like the leading providers-- PacBio, Oxford, Illumina. We've automated all of the processes for a range of these technologies.

We are currently looking for partners who would want to try the system. By end of this year, we are expecting to launch a soft launch and provide access to the technology. And we expect to go fully commercial next year.

Finally, the platform technology we've built is very fundamental. Moving and mixing and manipulating fluids in a precise and digital fashion is really important for an array of different workflows. On the same platform, we've synthesized 30 to 60 base pair, fragment-length DNA RNA as well as 3 to 5 kilobases of gene-length fragments on the exact same platform just by changing the chemistry and software, nothing else. So we are looking for long-term partners to also explore and develop other applications.

I'll be behind this wall later on. Please come find me. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]