Chief Scientific Officer
Mike Powell is a highly recognized scientific and business leader with more than 25 year’s experience in R&D, technology, and business and corporate development. Mike brings extensive knowledge and experience to DiaCarta in the fields of molecular diagnostic assay research and development, qPCR and other nucleic acid amplification technologies, and automated instrumentation platforms.
Mike was one of the founders of Odyssey Thera Inc., a privately held company that commercialized a proprietary fluorescent live cell-based assay and diagnostic imaging technology for the application in target validation and drug discovery.
Mike was the Director of New Technology at Roche Diagnostics (Roche acquired Boehringer Mannheim Corporation in May, 1997 for $11B). Prior to the acquisition by Roche he was Director of New Technology at Boehringer Mannheim Corporation (Boehringer Mannheim acquired Microgenics in June, 1992). He was also the Director of New Technology at Microgenics Corporation, in Concord, California. Mike was pioneer and lead scientist and inventor of the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) assay technology and also developed catalytic antibodies at IGEN, Inc. which was acquired by Roche for $1.4B in 2003. The ECL technology is the basis of Roche Diagnostics automated ‘in-vitro’ diagnostics immunoassay platform: ElecSys. Mike has held several other R & D senior management positions at Integrated Genetics Inc., Medisense and Celltech PLC, in the UK.
Mike has published many research papers in leading scientific journals and holds over 30 patents and patent-pending applications. Mike introduced a rapid real-time qPCR mutation analysis method in his article, Detection of the Hereditary Hemochromatosis Gene Mutation by Real-Time Fluorescence Polymerase Chain Reaction and Peptide Nucleic Acid Clamping. Analytical Biochemistry. Volume 260, Issue 2.1 July 1998, Pages 142–148.
He received his Ph.D. in medicinal organic chemistry from Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK and Ph.D. from University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.