IVAN-LAZAR BUNDALO EPIC CEO INTERVIEW
In this interview, Antonio Castelo, PhD, EPIC’s Technology Manager for Bio-Medical and Lasers, talks to Ivan-Lazar Bundalo , CTO at InSpek - a company in Paris, France, that makes PIC–based monitoring systems for biopharmaceutical and synthetic biology applications. IVAN-LAZAR BUNDALO CEO INTERVIEW
What’s the background to your appointment as CTO at InSpek?
a Seed fundraising period, and I joined working as a technical consultant. Our efforts aligned, and in January 2024, I was appointed as InSpek’s CTO to develop the technical roadmap and lead technical efforts.
architecture of the sensors makes them able to interact with different molecules and parameters being measured. We use passive chips, meaning no electronics are involved, and our Raman-on-chip technology is the first and the most complicated sensing technique we developed. We are benefitting from PIC’s very small footprint - that allows for integrating multiple sensors on a single chip. PICs are also reliable and affordable when produced at scale. As a fabless company, we do the designs and get different foundries to produce PICs for us. The packaging of the chips is taken care of by another partner, but everything else – characterisation, testing, encapsulation, and system designs are done by us.
AC
In 2010, I finished a BSc in Electrical Engineering at the University of Zagreb in Croatia. Having
I-LB
developed a passion for photonics, I then enrolled on an MSc in Photonics, funded by the European Union and organised by five universities in Marseilles, Barcelona and Karlsruhe. This was followed in 2013 by a PhD at Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen, where I focused on the development of Polymer Optical Fibre (POF) based sensors for a variety of medical and industrial applications. With a curiosity driving me, I couldn’t confine myself to just one field, so in 2018, I joined Tyndall Research Institute in Ireland as a Research Scientist on PIXAPP – European PIC Packaging Pilot Line. This large project involved working on multiple commercial and research projects involving the integration and packaging of ICT systems, biomedical and sensing devices. Besides learning about microoptics, electronics, mechanical design and thermal management, this was a formative experience for me as I was put in charge of leading development of a datacom demonstrator. This 4-year project comprising six mostly industrial partners, and a few cutting-edge technologies was pushing the frontiers and standardising new PIC packaging techniques. Then, in 2021, I moved to Switzerland to work for the Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM). There I worked also on PIC packaging, with a focus on industrial projects in biosensing, telecom and quantum domains. After a few months of career break backpacking in South America in 2023, I got in contact with Jérôme Michon, CEO of InSpek. He started InSpek with the aim of developing Raman-on-chip technology for improving the development of biopharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. At that time, InSpek was just about to enter
What is InSpek doing?
AC
Our focus at InSpek is the development of an all-in-one sensor to monitor bioprocesses.
I-LB
Bioprocesses utilize microorganisms to produce some of the most complex medicines ever created by humankind. We’ve been all in touch with those medicines as most vaccines are made by bioprocesses. These microorganisms need to be tuned carefully and controlled
What were the main challenges when you started?
for a range of parameters in their environment - such as acidity,
AC
temperature and oxygenation. Measuring these parameters, until now, required a different sensor for each parameter. That meant that not all the parameters could be measured at different stages of bioprocess upscaling. Furthermore, before being placed inside a bioreactor, each sensor has to be sterilized to avoid contamination by foreign bacteria – which carries an enormous environmental footprint. The advantage of using our all-in-one sensor is that the sterilization process must be done only once - saving a lot of time and money. Additionally, our sensors can be placed inside smallest bioreactors, which do not always have space for e.g. 5 conventional sensors. Finally, it’s the non-invasive monitoring - that can simultaneously and in-real time track several variables - that makes our solution unique.
I-LB What I didn’t expect was the amount of work I would have to do in addition to technical work. It ranged from talking to investors, preparing budgets, researching the market, and hiring people. As I hadn’t been involved in these areas before, it was an exciting challenge. With Jérôme’s help, and with great collaborative atmosphere inside the company, it all turned out to be a very rewarding experience.
Do you think previous training in business management would have been beneficial?
AC
I-LB Yes, and no. Training courses are very useful in the long term, the problem is that you get a lot of information, but you don’t absorb it all. Oftentimes the help is needed on particular issues. Fortunately, being a startup, we could ask incubators, accelerators, and since recently investors’ scaleboarding teams for help, and to advise us on specific issues we were facing. That was very helpful!
What’s the technology behind the sensor?
AC
We developed our IP on unique PIC designs that optimize light-matter interactions. The
I-LB
14
www.opticalconnectionsnews.com
| ISSUE 40 | Q1 2025
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker