Microfluidics & Bio-MEMS

Biography

Aurel Ymeti is cofounder and CEO of Nanoalmyona BV, a high-tech Dutch company specialized in research and technology development, project management and new business development in Hightech Systems and Materials, including integrated photonics, Lab-on-a-Chip biosensing, optoelectronics, microscopy, and nanomedicine. He earned his MSc in Theoretical Physics from the University of Tirana, Albania in 1996, and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics/Nanotechnology from the University of Twente, Netherlands in 2004, working on the development of ultrasensitive multichannel integrated photonic (bio-)sensing platforms. Subsequently, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the same university on development of portable devices for staging of HIV infection in point-of-care settings, later commercialized by Immunicon/Veridex (J&J). In 2008 Aurel cofounded Ostendum, a spin-off company of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente, focusing on the commercialization of extremely sensitive and label-free optical analysis methods for rapid detection of micro-organisms and biomarkers based on the Lab-on-a-Chip Nanotechnology, initially invented and developed by Aurel during his Ph.D. project. As CTO at Ostendum, he was responsible for the research and technology development, product management and new business development.

Research Interest

His work on photonic biosensors has been featured in many well-known international media publications, incl. MIT’s Technology Review, Nature, Le Monde, and BBC Focus Magazine and in 2007 the highly reputable business magazine Forbes has highlighted his work as one of the “13 Amazing New Nanotechnologies”. Aurel has received several awards including the prestigious European Lab-on-a-Chip Nanodevices Technology Innovation Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan in 2013.