At Apostle, we aim to develop technologies to fundamentally improve the efficiency and accuracy of liquid biopsy in early cancer detection.

Vision

The best predictive measure of the success of cancer treatment, universally for all forms of cancer, is how early the cancer is detected. At any size, tumors begin to rapidly shed DNA in blood circulation. Apostle is developing a technique to capture this circulating tumor DNA from a standard blood draw to help inform doctors if a patient is likely to have early stages of cancer, what form the cancer is in, and what treatment may be most successful against it. This will greatly benefit the entire population, as cancer is the leading cause of death globally.

We are positioning our company to be the pioneer in field of early cancer detection through blood-based liquid biopsy testing. Our ultimate vision is to develop an AI-enabled diagnostic system, using patent-pending nanoparticles reagents, that can use a standard blood draw to detect ultra-low levels of circulating tumor DNA, then use a best-in-class bioinformatics platform that plucks out hidden signatures to detect cancer at an earlier stage than is currently possible. This vision is feasible thanks to the 10x higher efficiency of our nanoparticle reagents as well as the AI-system that compares and learns from cancer big data.

In addition, our high-sensitivity technology can be used in a broad spectrum of clinical applications such as noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and infectious diseases.

Recognition

  • awards image StartX 2018
  • awards image BioSpace Top 20 Life Science Startups 2018
  • awards image Forbes China 30 Under 30 2017
  • awards image Amazon Web Service Activate Gold Premium Support 2017
  • awards image Finalist of North America Region, CACSC
awards image StartX 2018

StartX image

StartX image

StartX is a renowned educational non-profit that accelerates the development of Stanford's top entrepreneurs through experiential education and collective intelligence. The Stanford-StartX Fund (SSF), co-founded by StartX, Stanford University, and Stanford Health Care is available only to StartX companies with a Stanford-affiliated founder.

StartX alumni and trusted expert judges review and determine which teams are accepted. The acceptance rate has been between 8%-10%. Apostle is selected into the StartX Accelerator Program (Summer 2018 session), following one initial review, four interviews and due diligence.

awards image BioSpace Top 20 Life Science Startups 2018

Top 20 image

Top 20 image

Apostle Inc is selected into the Top 20 Life Science Startups to Watch in 2018 by BioSpace on January 2, 2018. The NextGen Bio Class of 2018 is "a list of 20 up-and-coming life science companies in North America that started up no earlier than 2015, a stellar group of companies that are already making an enormous impact on the industry now and will into the future."

Companies in the field of genomic sciences selected in the past three years include:

  • Freenome (Class of 2018): raised $77 million;
  • Grail (Class of 2017): raised $1.3 billion;
  • CRISPR (2016): IPO
  • Editas (2015): IPO
  • NextCode (2015): Acquired
awards image Forbes China 30 Under 30 2017

Forbes 30u30 image

Forbes China named Apostle Inc’s co-Founder and VP of Chemistry, Bo Zhang, PhD, as one of the most brilliant young entrepreneurs in its annual “30 Under 30 China” list in the category of healthcare and science.

awards image Amazon Web Service Activate Gold Premium Support 2017

CACSC image

Apostle Inc is selected into the Amazon Web Service (AWS) Activate Program.The AWS Activate Program is designed for startups in select accelerators, incubators, Seed/VC Funds, and other startup-enabling organizations. Some of the world’s hottest startups, including Airbnb, Slack, and Robinhood, have leveraged the power of AWS to quickly scale.

awards image Finalist of North America Region, CACSC

CACSC image

Apostle won the Second Place in the Final of North America Region, CACSC，(Create@AlibabaCloud Startup Contest). Over 300 startups from North America have competed in CACSC, and 13 entered the final.

Team

David Ge, MD. PhD.CEO & President

  • 18+ years of research and industry experience in genomic sciences
  • U.S. Citizen through federal "Outstanding Professors and Researchers"
  • President of BioSciKin Co. & Simcere Diagnostics Co (2016-2017)
  • Director of Bioinformatics at Gilead Sciences, Inc (2011-2016)
  • Assistant Professor of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Duke University School of Medicine (2008-2011)
  • Ph.D. in Biostatistics & Genetic Epidemiology, CAMS & PUMC (2004)
  • Co-authored 70+ peer-reviewed papers, 5 in Nature and 1 in Science, over 16,000 citations.

Bo Zhang, PhD.VP of Chemistry

Xin Guo, PhD.VP of Bioinformatics

  • 10+ years of research and industry experience in bioinformatics, artificial intelligence (AI), and HPC
  • VP of Bioinformatics, Simcere Diagnostics, Inc (2016-2017)
  • Group leader, research scientist of Bioinformatics at Gilead Sciences, Inc. Led the clinical phylogenomic project for Sovaldi®, a world-leading anti-HCV drug. (2012-2016)
  • Ph.D. in Computer Science, Duke University (2012)
  • M.S. in Informatics from Max Planck Institute, Germany (2006)
  • Led multiple publications in AI, including in PNAS.

Wenqi Zeng, MD. PhD. FACMG.SVP of Medicine

  • 15+ years of research, clinics and industry experience in clinical diagnostics
  • Senior director of Molecular Genetics at Quest Diagnostics (2014-2017)
  • Director of Clinical Genomics at Ambry Genetics (2011-2014)
  • Qualified CAP CLIA lab director in CA, FL and MD; Qualified CAP inspection team leader
  • New York state COQ in molecular genetics and molecular oncology
  • PhD, Molecular Genetics
  • Fellow of clinical molecular genetics, human/medical genetics, Harvard Medical School
  • Holding diploma of ABMGG

Shuting Zhao, PhDScientist

  • 5+ years research experience in micro and nano scale biomaterials and their applications on regenerative medicine, cancer treatment, drug delivery and drug screening
  • PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Ohio State University
  • MS in Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University
  • First-author article in Nature Communications
  • 19 co-authored peer-reviewed publications in top journals and one US patent
  • HHMI Med into Grad Scholar in Ross Heart Hospital

Joshua Robinson, PhDPrincipal Business Development Consultant

  • Innovation Leader, Colox, a Fortune 500 Consumer Packaged Goods company
  • Director, Nirmidas Biotech, Inc., a point-of-care diagnostic company
  • Senior Application Scientist, Beckman Coulter, an American company that develops, manufactures and markets products for complex biomedical testing in both diagnostics and life sciences laboratories .
  • Principal investigator, NIH R43 grant
  • PhD, Stanford University
  • BS, Purdue University

Advisory Board

Charles Cantor, PhD.

  • Member of National Academy of Sciences
  • Professor Emeritus, Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
  • Founder & Chief Scientific Officer at Sequenom, Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM, acquired by LabCorp)
  • Chairman, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
  • Director, Center for Advanced Biotechnology, Boston University
  • Director, the Human Genome Project (HGP)
  • Ph.D., Biophysical Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley
  • A.B., Chemistry, Columbia University

Hongyu Zhao, PhD.

  • Chairman, Biostatistics Department, Yale University
  • Ira V. Hiscock Professor of Biostatistics and Professor of Statistics and Genetics, Yale University
  • Fellow, AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
  • Fellow, Institute of Mathematical Statistics
  • Fellow, American Statistical Association
  • Ph.D., Statistics, University of California at Berkeley
  • B.S., Probability and Statistics, Peking University

Dean Felsher, MD. PhD.

  • Professor. Division of Oncology, Departments of Medicine and Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Director, Translational Research and Applied Medicine; Director of Research, Division of Oncology; Associate Director, Director of Admissions, Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP); Co-Director, Translational Cancer Nanotechnology Training Program; Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Elected Member, Association of American Physicians
  • M.D. Ph.D., Medicine/Molecular Biology, UCLA
  • B.S., Chemistry, University of Chicago

David B. Goldstein, PhD.

  • John E. Borne Professor of Medical and Surgical Research, Columbia University
  • Director, Institute for Genomic Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center
  • Fellow, AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
  • Recipient, Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award
  • PhD, Theoretical Population Genetics, Stanford University
  • BS, Biology, UCLA

Alexander J. Hartemink, PhD.

  • Professor, Departments of Computer Science and Biology, Duke University
  • Faculty Director, the Office of Undergraduate Scholars and Fellows; Former Director of Graduate Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBB), Duke University
  • Ph.D., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
  • M.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT; M.Phil., Economics, Oxford University
  • B.S., Mathematics, Physics, and Economics (triple major), Duke University

Board of Directors

David Ge, MD. PhD.Chairman

William Dai, MBADirector

Bo Zhang, PhD.Director

Xin Guo, PhD.Director

Investors