Lucigen Corporation Takes On Diagnostic Giants With On-The-Spot Pathogen Tests

Lucigen’s ambitious plan to challenge big diagnostic firms with its own rapid tests for infections like flu and strep traces its origins to a Yellowstone National Park hot spring dubbed “Octopus Spring.” That’s where molecular biologists David Mead and colleague Tom Schoenfeld in the early 2000s discovered an enzyme that will now form the key ingredient in their Middleton, WI, company’s planned test for quickly identifying pathogens. Mead founded Lucigen, a small life sciences supplier, in 1998 because he thought it would be fun to try running a company and get off the bench as a research scientist at Wisconsin companies like Promega and Molecular Biology Resources.

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