About our Founder
Dr. Michael Sismour is a nucleic acid chemist/biologist with roughly 15 years enabling innovative solutions in the biotechnology, diagnostics, and genomics industries. He founded 5Bases Biotechnologies in 2022 following 13 years of experience as a part-time, independent consultant. His experience as a researcher working in and with some of the most innovative labs in the world, running programs and departments at large biotech companies, and serving startups as a founder, executive, or advisor has impassioned Mike with a desire to use his multi-faceted experience to empower startups for success.
Most recently, Mike served as Vice President of Research and Innovation at Ultivue, a Spatial Biology company focused on development of innovative technologies and strategies for multiplexed biomarker detection and multiomics. Prior to Ultivue, he served as the Chief Scientist and Head of Genomics R&D at Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, where he was responsible for sustaining and new product development, strategy (technology and product portfolio roadmaps), Genomics Open Innovation (technology licensing, strategic partnerships, M&A), developed a Tech Push (Innovation) Danaher Business System tool-kit, and served as a BEC and Danaher diligence team member for investing and M&A opportunities. Previously, Mike worked at QIAGEN as a Technical Development Lead/Consultant and in 2014 co-founded Legomics, a startup focused on benchtop gene synthesis, where he served as the Chief Technology Officer until 2016 and has remained as an advisor.
Additionally, Michael has research experience at renowned institutions such as the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, where he ran a small group as a Research Fellow from 2009 to 2015, and Harvard Medical School, where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the George Church Laboratory. During this time he aided in the ideation and creation of some of the most transformative biotechnologies of the past two decades. It was during this time that he bagan consulting for the many companies that were spinning out of the Wyss Institute and/or Church lab as well as larger companies entering the newly created NGS industry.
Dr Sismour began his education at the University of Florida, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology an Cell Science in 2001. Michael then pursued further studies at the same institution under the tutelage of world renowned nucleic acid chemist Steven Benner and completed their Ph.D. in Chemistry from 2002 to 2005. Following their doctoral studies, Mike joined the Genetics Department at Harvard Medical School as a Postdoctoral Fellow to study Genomics and Synthetic Biology.