< SynthBits is a participant in Cohort 4 of Duality >
Berk Kovos, CEO and founder of SynthBits, wants to image life in ways never seen before – and he’s going to do so with a novel quantum microscope.
Kovos, who received both his undergraduate and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago, focused much of his work on exploring new quantum bits, or qubits, in the Awschalom lab in collaboration with the Freedman lab out of MIT. It was through this work that he helped pioneer a new molecular qubit technology.
With this technology in hand, Kovos worked with the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to explore its commercialization potential and develop a business plan.
Today, Kovos is executing this plan, backed by two years of experience working at a quantum startup and participation in the Duality accelerator and Chain Reaction Innovations program at Argonne National Laboratory.
“Life is a result of the orchestration of millions of different molecules all acting according to the laws of physics – really laws of quantum mechanics – interacting with each other,” said Kovos.
SynthBits’ quantum microscopes use proprietary quantum tags to better understand both these molecules and their interplay with each other. Each tag is a quantum-bit composed of a nano-magnet that can be set, measured, and controlled with optical and microwave light.
“Unlike traditional microscopy tags which typically relay only a single piece of information, SynthBits’ microscopy tags hope to capture higher quality data with additional measurement modalities about the immediate environment by the tag powered by quantum sensing schemes,” Kovos explained.
In addition to measuring a greater number of molecules with higher sensitivity than traditional microscopes, Kovos said that quantum microscopes can also offer additional information around the tags.
“Seeing is believing, and SynthBits hopes to image life in ways never seen before,” said Kovos. This ability will lead to fundamental advances in life sciences as well as help with disease research, diagnostics, and drug discovery.
“Molecules are very small and they govern life. To truly unearth how a soup of proteins can build cells, the most fundamental block of life, and how they function, signal, work, and communicate with each other, we need to measure many aspects of this machinery,” he added.
Over the next five years, Kovos aims to work with academics, pharmaceutical companies, and clinicians to better human lives. Today, he said he feels proud to be a part of the Duality program. “This is an incredibly prestigious program that would grant a lot of visibility to SynthBits,” he said. “As a scientist-turned-entrepreneur, I have a lot to learn from the experts in Duality.”
“Just like microchips are now very much a part of every aspect of our lives since their invention a couple of decades ago, it is only a matter of time before quantum technologies permeate to everyday lives, too,” added Kovos. “I think it is inevitable that quantum sensing for life sciences is a part of this trend.”
// Read more about the other startups in Duality Cohort 4: