Short CV: Roland Zengerle
Since 1999, Roland Zengerle is full professor at the faculty of engineering at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He is also an executive board member of “Hahn-Schickard“, a non-profit organization supporting industry by contract research in developing innovative products based on MEMS technologies.
Since 2011 Dr. Zengerle is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina). He was chairperson and/or steering committee member of numerous international conferences including IEEE-MEMS (2006), World Micromachine Summit (2010), MicroTAS (2013), Transducers (2019), etc.
The research of Prof. Zengerle and his team is focused on microfluidics and specializes in lab-on-a-chip systems, Point-of-Care diagnostics and cell handling technologies. He published more than 400 research papers, reviews and book chapters and his research activities lead to 10 Spin-Off’s currently employing about 240 scientists and engineers.
Title: The adventure of commercializing microfluidics
The talk will focus on three categories of microfluidic devices and/or solutions:
- Micro- and nanoliter dispensing
- Molecular diagnostics at the Point-of-Care by centrifugal microfluidics
- Absolut quantification of proteins and protein-protein interactions
The presentation provides an overview of challenges, pitfalls, and success stories in trying to translate academic visions into successful products by fostering and founding spin-off companies:
- Biofluidix (2005; acquired by Hamilton in 2022)
- Cytena (2014; acquired by BICO in 2019))
- SpinDiag (2016)
- Actome (2017)
- Cytena Bioprocess Solutions (2019; acquired by Leadgene Biomedical in 2025)
- Dermagnostix (2020)
- Endress+Hauser BioSense (2021)
- ionysis (2022) and
- Pico BioSciences (2025)
- AddimusBio (2025)
- MillionMolecules (currently in formation)
Meanwhile, three of them have been acquired by global market leaders in laboratory automation, and two have been restarted after insolvency.
The Adventure of Commercializing Microfluidics
Roland Zengerle, Hahn-Schickard, GERMANY
Title: Microfluidic devices for high throughput testing units