ACXEL Biosciences Files for IPO: Pioneering Digital Microfluidics to Transform Life Science Research
Ma Hanbin received his Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2014, with a research focus on biosensors based on thin-film electronics technology. Thin-film electronics technology is commonly used in the flat-panel display industry, which includes laptop computers, mobile phone screens, and LCD televisions; this highly mature consumer electronics sector represents an ideal career path for professionals in this field.
However, Ma Hanbin chose a path that was both earlier and more arduous—applying thin-film-based semiconductor technology to the life sciences field to develop biochips.
“When selecting an application direction, I had extensive discussions with my supervisor. The application of semiconductor technology in the consumer electronics sector is already widespread; driven by advancements in semiconductors, the consumer electronics industry undergoes extremely rapid iteration. It is fair to say that the capacity of semiconductor technology has become excessive in the consumer electronics market. I hope to apply this cutting-edge technology to fields that are more beneficial to the development of human society,”Life sciences is a field that has not yet fully enjoyed the dividends of semiconductor technology."Ma Hanbin stated.
In the field of life sciences, as research deepens, scientists are continuously raising their standards for precision, such as detection methods at the single-molecule level, functional studies at the single-cell scale, and investigations into more complex inter-system interactions. On the other hand, traditional laboratory settings remain largely unchanged—shelves cluttered with bottles and jars containing various reagents and samples, where laboratory personnel spend their days using pipettes to mix reagents according to specific protocols to carry out reactions.Scientific researchers must not only engage in intellectually demanding thinking and design, but also perform tedious manual labor.
“Traditional experimental processes are cumbersome, time-consuming, and costly. We believe that semiconductor technology will be a powerful tool for revolutionizing the life sciences sector, enabling the redirection of excess capacity from the semiconductor industry toward life sciences, while delivering performance capabilities that traditional experimental methods cannot meet.”
Therefore, Ma Hanbin founded Aosu Technology. The company is based onDigital Microfluidics Platform Developed with Thin-Film Electronics Technology, canMeets the needs for high-throughput screening, discovery, and functional studies at the single-microbe, cellular, and molecular levels., it enables the parallel generation of large-scale digital microdroplets containing biological samples on a two-dimensional plane for real-time detection and characterization, with the capability to continuously manipulate any droplets of interest in parallel, serving applications in basic life sciences research, cell therapy development, antibody therapy, synthetic biology, and other scenarios.
Recalling his entrepreneurial journey, Ma Hanbin summarized it as “luck.”
Ma Hanbin earned his Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2014, with a research focus on semiconductor technologies based on thin-film electronics. Thin-film electronics, an emerging class of semiconductor technology, offers low cost and large-area fabrication capabilities. China has already attained a global leading position in both thin-film electronics production capacity and technological expertise.
After earning his Ph.D., Ma Hanbin participated in an international collaborative project between the University of Cambridge and the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he leveraged thin-film electronics technology to achieve precise digital manipulation of biological samples, thereby establishing a foundation of core proprietary technologies.
In 2017, Ma Hanbin’s project on precise manipulation of biological samples won first place in a startup competition for University of Cambridge researchers, attracting investor interest, completing an angel financing round, and subsequently leading to the establishment of ACXEL. In 2020, Ma Hanbin shifted his focus to China and founded Ausu Technology.
Subsequently, Aosuo Technology garnered favor from multiple investment institutions and completed two rounds of financing, with investors includingLinear Capital, Hillhouse Ventures, Country Garden Ventures, Cowin Capital, Qiming Venture Partnersand other star institutions.
In fact, there is no such thing as unearned luck; the rapid growth of Ausu Technology is underpinned by the vast potential of digital technologies for precise manipulation of biological samples.
High-throughput, parallel, and precise sample manipulation has always been a goal that researchers in the life sciences have tirelessly pursued.
Ma Hanbin explained, “As everyone knows, no two leaves in the world are exactly alike. For instance, during the antibody discovery process, scientists need to identify the specific B cells that meet their requirements from among thousands of candidates. In this context, precise, high-throughput, and parallel droplet manipulation serves as a powerful tool to achieve this goal.”
andAchieving high-throughput, parallel, and precise operations in traditional laboratories requires substantial investments of manpower, time, and capital.In recent years, microfluidics has become a highly prominent technology in the field of life sciences. Aosu Technology is leveraging thin-film electronics to develop a digital microfluidics platform that significantly reduces unit reaction volumes, miniaturizing bulky laboratory workflows onto a single chip. This enables highly intelligent, automated, and high-throughput precise droplet manipulation.
Over the past decade, the application of microfluidics technology in the field of biotechnology has become relatively mature. Among the most successful cases, Bio-Rad developed digital PCR chips based on a microfluidic platform, enabling absolute quantification of nucleic acids; 10X Genomics utilized a similar water-in-oil emulsion approach to generate single-cell samples for library preparation, capturing a 90% market share in the single-cell sequencing market.
Difficulty in large-scale production and insufficient yield rates are common pain points of microfluidic technology.The significant advantage of Aosutech’s digital microfluidics platform lies in its ability to enable rapid development, mass production, high yield rates, and cost control by making only minor modifications to flat-panel display manufacturing technologies and leveraging existing large-scale production lines.
Aosu Technology’s digital microfluidics platform integrates electrowetting, thin-film transistor (TFT), and display panel technologies. By leveraging electric fields and programmed driving signals to control surface tension and manipulate droplets, the platform features array-based chips with a resolution of 256×256. This enables high-throughput, parallel, and precise manipulation of discrete microdroplets, addressing the limitations of traditional microfluidic technologies, which are restricted to generating and manipulating lower-resolution droplets.
“In layman’s terms, Ausu Technology can reduce biological and liquid samples to sufficiently small volumes while dividing them into a large number of aliquots, thereby enabling precise manipulation and sorting of single cells, single bacteria, and molecules,” said Ma Hanbin.
“This is equivalent to creating a shovel that can mine an untapped ore deposit.” Aosu Technology has validated its capabilities across multiple specialized scenarios, enabling precise manipulation of various cell types. It achieves single-cell parallel manipulation and single-droplet sorting at the 10³ scale, and supports in situ culture of single cells generated on-chip.
The company has already established collaborations with multiple clients in specialized fields such as B cell sorting, synthetic biology, and single-cell omics.
Among them,In immune cell sorting, B-cell screening is a critical step in antibody drug development. However, existing technologies can only automate certain simple procedures. Aosu Technology enables the entire complex workflow of immune cell sorting to be performed on-chip, thereby improving efficiency and reducing errors caused by manual operations.
In Single-Cell Omics ApplicationsThe single-cell sequencing industry has experienced significant growth in recent years. While scientists and enterprises have accumulated vast amounts of data, they face challenges due to the lack of suitable platforms for manipulation, resulting in underutilized data value. There is an urgent need for a parallel and highly precise single-cell manipulation platform to facilitate single-cell research. Aosu Technology has achieved high-efficiency sorting and precise enrichment of single cells, thereby improving experimental efficiency and shortening R&D cycles.
In the antibody discovery phase, if outsourced to a CRO company, it would take approximately 10–12 weeks; by leveraging Aosu Technology’s digital microfluidics platform to achieve full-process automation, it requires only 5–7 days.
Ma Hanbin has observed that the laboratory automation sector is becoming increasingly competitive,Future life science laboratories will undoubtedly be highly automated., Aosu Technology is contributing to the automation and intelligent development of laboratories.
Looking ahead, Ausu Technology will continue to iterate its technologies and refine its products. “Through extensive interactions with numerous clients, we have found that they are highly intrigued by the vast potential of digital microfluidics platforms. Beyond existing application scenarios, clients frequently propose innovative ideas. We aim to expand the reach of our digital microfluidics platform into more uncharted territories of life sciences. In the future, our technology platform will be present wherever precise liquid handling is required.”