Probius

Proboscis is Latin for nose, which is why it made sense for Dr. Emmanuel Quevy — and co-founders Dr. Roger Howe and Dr. Chaitanya Gupta — to name their company Probius. “Odor sensors are activated through a quantum mechanism and generate signals that are sent to your brain, which aggregates and assembles these signals to form a fingerprint for a particular odor,” explains Quevy. “And we’re emulating the sense of smell (process) through our platform — but for molecular detection.” 

A front-runner in the techbio industry, Probius has developed a way to measure the molecular vibrations of biological specimens from patients and turn that data collection into 40-dimensional maps. These mathematical representations are then stored on the cloud as digital twins. “You can access that sample over and over again,” says Dr. Juan Cuevas, senior vice-president of marketing and business development at Probius, “without having to take the sample again, without having to re-measure it.” 

Based in Fremont, Calif., the company couples bioanalytical technology with AI-powered software. The result is a simple yet powerful device the size of a smart phone, which can provide prompt feedback, improving predictive insight into disease, increasing the pace of biomedical research and potentially accelerating drug development. “We remove the latency that is typically associated with sending samples … with something that can be done quasi-instantaneously,” says Cuevas. “So you have better healthcare because you can respond faster.” 

Probius, incorporated in 2016, is a nice fit with UCeed. The co-founders are encouraged by the presence of Quantum City and, in general, the strategic efforts around quantum science in Calgary. 

Visit Probius’s website for more information. 

Probius has received investment from UCeed, a venture philanthropy fund accelerating UCalgary and community-based startup companies to advance problem-solving research, create jobs and fuel the economy. A key program in the UCalgary innovation ecosystem, UCeed bridges the gap between innovation, demonstration and commercialization, and is managed by UCalgary’s knowledge-transfer and business incubator, Innovate Calgary. 

UCeed Health Fund is supported by the generosity of the River Fund at the Calgary Foundation and its mission to build a healthy and vibrant community where everyone belongs. 

UCeed Child Health is funded by the generosity of our community through the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation and its mission to inspire our community to invest in excellence in child health, research and family centred care.