VP of R&D
BioSpyder Technologies Inc.
Tom Chen is the VP of Research and Development at BioSpyder Technologies. He oversees the development program and the execution of projects supported by grants and contracts. Tom manages experimental planning and troubleshooting, directs research personnel, collaborates with contractors and customers, and supports product manufacturing and service projects. During the project, Tom reviewed project plans and assisted with all troubleshooting in coordination with EPA representatives. He can devote time to each project as needed to ensure its successful completion.
Prior to joining BioSpyder, Tom was the cofounder and CSO of Universal Sequencing Technologies (UST) from 2016 to 2023. He led the development of TELL-Seq linked-read sequencing technology which generates long-read information using short read sequencers, and the AmpliDrop single cell technology, designed to overcome the high cost and low throughput of commercially available single cell solutions. Before UST, Tom served as Sr. R&D Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific and Principal Scientist at Invitrogen from 2008 to 2016, and as a Staff Scientist at 454 Life Sciences – a Roche Company from 2002 to 2008. He is the primary inventor of many NGS technologies, including 454’s Paired End Sequencing, Life Technologies’ Mate Paired Sequencing, Ion Torrent’s Bi-directional Sequencing and Ion Shear Fragmentation. He led the teams that developed and launched numerous molecular biology reagent kits for epigenetic, NGS and diagnostic applications. Tom earned a B.S and M.S. in Molecular Biology from Nankai University, China, and a Ph.D. in Biology from McGill University, Canada.