Metfora
Our company is developing a blood test that can quickly recognize chronic lung, heart disorders, and cancers in their early stages.
the problem
Too often patients present with common seemingly minor symptoms such as fatigue or dizziness that are actually evidence of a much more serious underlying condition. It can take an average of 2-4 years to properly diagnose these severe disease, preventing the doctor from treating the disease in its early, more treatable stages.
the solution
To help doctors better diagnose severe diseases from minor symptoms, we have developed a test that uses metabolites in the blood, combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly identify what diseases are present.
AI identifies the diseases that are present by recognizing patterns in the patient’s circulating metabolites providing a quick result to the doctor and patient. We have patented these patterns as “disease fingerprints” and are the first in the field to use such a novel approach.
Martin Fuchs
CO-FOUNDER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Martin Fuchs, Chief Executive Officer, brings more than 40 years of industry experience. He has held senior product development roles in diagnostics, most recently in clinical microbiology at Accelerate Diagnostics and AdvanDx. He is the co-founder of three companies including CellPoint Diagnostics and Active Impulse Systems. He began his career at Waters, a world leader in bioanalytical instrumentation. He holds two Engineering degrees from MIT and is an inventor on more than 30 issued US patents.
Olga Rafikova, MD, PhD
CO-FOUNDER
Dr. Rafikova has worked in the area of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases for over 20 years. Since 2015, Dr. Rafikova has been an Assistant Professor at the Department of Medicine, the University of Arizona, leading a multidisciplinary research group. She is an inventor, translational researcher, precision medicine, and sex-oriented innovator.
Dr. Rafikova has research interests in sex-specific therapeutic approaches in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a deadly disease with no effective therapy.
By using a combination of multiple preclinical models and patient samples her research team investigates:
1) the sex-specific changes in the redox profile as a biomarker or prognostic factor for pulmonary diseases;
2) sex-specific circulating inflammatory markers, and
3) metabolites that could serve as a fingerprint of an early stage of asymptomatic disorders.
Dr. Rafikova dedicates a lot of her effort to design and test the unique peptide-based therapeutics that, in contrast to the classical “small molecule” inhibitors, specifically attenuate the pathological, disease-driven signaling without affecting the normal physiological function of the protein. She has five active patent applications aimed to treat different cardiovascular diseases.
Ruslan Rafikov, PhD
CO-FOUNDER, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER
Dr. Rafikov has been working on cardio-pulmonary diseases since 2000. He has published over 60 papers in prestigious scientific journals. Being a chemist by background, he excels in the area of small molecule, peptide, and biologics therapeutics. He has patented over ten inventions. Currently, Dr. Rafikov focuses on the development of a new diagnostic tool with the Metfora team, combining his leadership and knowledge in metabolites chemistry, disease conditions, and data analysis.