Chief Scientific / Medical Officer (Stealth Photonic Bio-sensing Venture)

We are an early-stage deep-tech photonic bio-sensing company combining silicon photonics, micro-fluidics, and applied AI to bring high-end optical diagnostics out of the central lab and onto a low-cost disposable chip plus a compact reader. The first product is a point-of-care diagnostic addressing a multi-billion dollar clinical market currently served by hand-aligned, six-figure bench-top instruments.

The mission

Clinical-grade flow cytometry today happens in a central laboratory: a £250K instrument, a trained technician, refrigerated antibody reagents, a four-to-twelve-hour turnaround. About 3.7 billion people on the planet, half of humanity, have no access to that infrastructure. The convergence of silicon photonics, AI design, and disposable micro-fluidics has finally made the alternative viable: a 90-second result for £5 at the point of care. The clinical questions this unlocks, rapid sepsis triage, CD4/CD8 in the field, leukaemia screening at primary care, transplant and cell-therapy monitoring, are worth building a company around.

You own the clinical and scientific story end-to-end. Investors, design partners, and clinical collaborators need to hear the biology from someone who has lived it. You decide which biomarkers and clinical questions we go after first, and how the company’s scientific roadmap evolves over years 1, 3, and 5.

Responsibilities

• Scientific narrative: the biomarker → clinical decision story behind every commercial bet, investor pitch, and grant.
• Clinical and research partnerships: design-partner relationships across haematology, oncology, infectious disease, transplant, and translational research.
• Assay and panel strategy: which markers we ship first, the rationale a clinician will accept, and the evidence we need to gather to support each claim.
• Clinical evidence and trial design: working with regulatory consultants to map the path through pre-submission, CLIA-Waiver / IVDR, and pivotal study.
• Clinical Advisory Board: recruit and chair a small specialist board across the priority therapy areas.
• Scientific authorship: publications and grant submissions that build biological credibility.
• Future scientific direction: as the company’s scientific roadmap evolves, you frame the clinical and translational opportunities that justify each step.

London-based. Hybrid works well. Fully remote isn’t a fit at this stage, we need to be in the same room when it matters.