John Waldeisen

John is the CEO & co-founder of Diassess, a startup developing the next generation of rapid DNA diagnostic tests for infectious disease testing. For the past 10 years, John has worked in the research & development of point-of-care diagnostic devices that enable the rapid detection of infectious diseases such as malaria, HIV, TB, influenza, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and neglected diseases like schistosomiasis, among others. This work is part of an endeavor to alleviate the health disparities that are prevalent in our world by minimizing the role of the clinical laboratory via cheap diagnostic tools. John has 10 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 7 filed patents and pending patent applications, and co-authored more than $6.5M in diagnostic grants funded by the NIH, NSF, Gates Foundation, and DARPA. John graduated summa cum laude from Penn State University and received his PhD in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley. He is an alumnus of the YCombinator and StartX entrepreneurship programs and looks forward to meeting the many wonderful and creative folks in attendance at SXSW.