Overview

Gender

male

A leading innovator, educator, and entrepreneur with over 18 years’ experience in developing tools for life science research and technologies for nucleic acid analysis, Andre founded Boreal Genomics with colleagues from the University of British Columbia in 2007.

Andre received his B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics from UBC in 1989, and his Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University in 1994. He subsequently worked for several years with Prof. Ron Davis, in the Stanford DNA Sequencing Technology Center, developing instruments for DNA sequencing and sample purification. He returned to Canada in 1998, as an Assistant Professor at University of British Columbia in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he founded the Applied Biophysics Laboratory and the Genome BC Technology Development Platform. In 2005 he was appointed Director of the Engineering Physics program at UBC.

In 2004, Andre co-invented the concept of using synchronous mobility perturbations to create divergent velocity fields for selective focusing of nucleic acids, the technology which forms the basis for Boreal’s platforms. He has been awarded the 2004 BC Innovation Council Young Innovator award, the 2007 Association for Lab Automation Innovation Award, and the 2011 Life Science BC Award for Innovation and Achievement.