Screen millions of single cells, sorting on function
Link functional phenotype & transcriptome at single cell resolution
Multi-omic data mining centered on understanding cell function
We bring together more than 10 years of scientific and industrial experience with single cell assays using droplet-based microfluidics technologies. We convert this experience into two cutting edge, ultra-high throughput single cell benchtop instruments for immune cell profiling and cell line development.
Our ambition is to enable users to extract the maximum information from a single cell by screening millions of cells, one by one and linking their function to their genotype. Our instruments will make it possible to find and develop high quality functional antibodies and T cells at unprecedented speed and precision.
Novel assays are also in development, applicable to other cell types and designed to enable informed (pre) clinical decision making.
Fred Dom is a serial entrepreneur with expertise in private capital investment, setting up and growing biotech companies. Fred’s passion is to bring new science and technologies to the market. Before starting Saber Bio, Fred was co-founder and CEO at HiFiBiO Therapeutic that developed a single-cell droplet-based microfluidics platform for antibody drug discovery. He brings to Saber his experience in helping HiFiBiO raise over $180 million to advance a pipeline of therapeutic antibodies making use of the power of droplet-based microfluidics and closing multiple biotech and big pharma collaborations. Fred holds a master’s degree in economics from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Annabelle Gérard is a cellular and molecular biologist with close to 20 years of experience. She turned technology developer for almost 10 years. She joined HiFiBiO in 2013 as first employee, and since then led the single cell screening platform for high precision and accuracy T and B cells screening and recovery, both from a phenotypic and Omics angle. As Senior Director of External Innovation at HiFiBiO she led the partnership programs with KOLs in top academic institutions, as well as biotech and big Pharma companies. She is co-inventor of more than 10 patent applications covering methods, instruments and applications in engineering, cellular and molecular biology. She defended her PhD 15 years ago from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France) and completed a post-doctoral research in infectious disease at the Cochin Institute, Paris, France.
Adam Woolfe is a bioinformatician with more than 20 years experience in algorithm development, computational genomics and immunoinformatics in both academia and industry. Before joining Saber, Adam worked at HiFiBiO since 2014 and led the development of the bioinformatics server infrastructure and software tools for analysis of high-throughput sequencing of single-cell antibody and TCR data from the ground up. He obtained a PhD in Comparative Genomics from Cambridge, UK and did postdoctoral work at NIH, USA and Curie Institute, Paris, France. He has worked in research on subjects as diverse as ultra-conservation in vertebrate genomes, prediction of disease variants that disrupt gene splicing and epigenetic contributions to cancer.
Félix Lebois has over ten years of experience in Research and Development. After completing his PhD in biophysics, he worked for five years at the research centre of Saint-Gobain in Paris, where he led several projects for the characterization of industrial processes for glass manufacturing. In 2018 Félix returned to biophysics and the biotechnology sector, and joined Fluidic Analytics, a Cambridge-based start-up that develops tools for in-solution protein characterization. As a Microfluidics Scientist, he contributed to the technology development for the company’s next generation of instruments, first in Zürich (Switzerland) and then in Cambridge (UK). He joined Saber in 2021 as the company’s first employee, where he oversees instrument development. Félix graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in 2008. He holds an MS in Physics from Université Pierre et Marie Curie and a PhD in Physics from Université Paris Diderot.
Pooja Joshi is a PhD in Pharmacological Sciences and has more than 11 years of experience in drug discovery involving the identification of novel therapeutics for rare and neurologic diseases. She joined Sanofi in 2019 and was responsible for managing pre-clinical projects in in-vitro pharmacology, holding responsibilities for strategy and prioritization, and participated in external innovation projects with academic institutes. She associates herself with biomarker screening from patient’s PBMCs using single cell approaches. After gaining experience in cellular biology and microparticle biology during her PhD from University of Milan, Italy, she did post-doctoral research in INSERM UMR1141, Paris, where she worked on developing assays in the field of molecular biology.
Pierre Khoury is a software engineer and project manager with over ten years of experience creating and building systems to advance science and better people’s well-being.
His entrepreneurial mindset has led him to work on a variety of projects. He gained an acute intuition on all aspects of software development, from commercial application development and quality assurance in California, to cloud architecture and regulatory planning in the UK. Head of Software at Saber Bio since January 2022, Pierre leads all software activities with two goals: supporting a high-performance research and development team and driving the software development of a commercial research instrument. Pierre holds a master’s degree in telecommunication from the ENSEIRB engineering school in Bordeaux, as well as a Biomedical Imaging and Signal processing Master of Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
Functional antibodies against GPCR targets.
Multi-parametric readout.
Recovering one-in-a-million functional reactive T-cells.
Superior sensitivity to identify rare and functional cells.
Our platform analyzing for functions millions of single cells in few hours is particularly suited for antibody discovery and T cell screening. We integrate kinetics, function, imaging, sorting into our system – cell line development becomes easier.
Because we have scanned hundreds of millions of antibody producing cells (both primary and engineered B cells), billions of primary T cells, we believe we have the technology and expertise for finding the 1-in-a million rare clone.
Binding, cross-reacting, internalizing and (anta)agonists antibodies and cell-cell interaction for T-cell screening (both primary and engineered) makes drug discovery possible in a day.
More to come with our novel suits of assays for recovering functional rare cell population and linking with their genotype.
Based on our ten-year experience and having screened hundreds of millions of antibodies producing cells (both primary and engineered B cells) and billions of primary T cells, we have the perfect technology and biological expertise for finding the one-in-a million rare clone.
With our team we use our deep understanding and experience to introduce two benchtop instruments, based on droplet microfluidics, each offering a complete solution with a unique combination of features:
Colors of cells encapsulated in droplets are reminiscent of peacocks’ tail-feather patterns. Only deep phenotyping can distinguish each one of them.
EnSorCell is a fascinating instrument that can Encapsulate and Sort Cells based on their deep phenotype and function.
Like stars, droplets screened by Saber instruments are both bright and innumerable. Like stars, only a handful are of interest to scientists.
The Ascella platform consists of three modules:
Nebulae are interstellar clouds of dust and gas where stars are born.
A celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust and, when near the sun, a ‘tail’ of gas and dust particles pointing away from the sun.
On a clear night, sparkling stars appear to be still and ordered against the black background.