Conference Presenter
Anita Goel, MD, PhD
Physicist & Physician; Chairman and CEO of Nanobiosym
Dr. Anita Goel, MD Ph.D is a world-renowned expert and global entrepreneur in the emerging field of Nanobiophysics – a new science at the convergence of physics, nanotechnology, and biomedicine. Whereas modern physics in the 20th century was developed primarily in the context of closed systems, Dr. Goel seeks to expand conventional theoretical and experimental physics frameworks and their mathematical machinery to describe non-equilibrium, open systems such as life and living systems that are strongly coupled with their environment. She has developed a new theoretical physics framework that elucidates the interplay of matter, energy, and information at a very fundamental physics level. Dr. Goel harnesses these insights to examine one of the most basic processes of living matter, the way nanomotors read and write information into DNA, how this process is influenced by the environment, and how quantum mechanics might play a “nontrivial” role in their dynamics. Dr. Goel is pioneering the new physics of life, living systems, and consciousness as she and her team elucidate the physics of one of the most fundamental processes of living matter at the Nanobiosym Research Institute (NBS): the way nanomotors read and write information into DNA and is commercializing these innovations to empower people with real-time precision data about their own health.
As the Chairman and CEO of Nanobiosym Diagnostics (NBSDx), Dr. Goel oversees all product design, engineering, clinical trials, regulatory approvals and manufacturing of the company’s breakthrough technologies, such as the X-PRIZE winning Gene-RADAR® and its “apps” for personalized precision medicine, digital health and global health security. In 2020, Barclay’s Bank and the Unreasonable Group selected Nanobiosym Dx amongst the “World’s Top 10 Companies solving the Global COVID Crisis” and Scientific American featured her work on how mobile precision testing for COVID could safely reopen the US and Global Economy. The 2019 “Davos in the Desert” Conference featured Dr. Goel and Nanobiosym as one of the 12 most promising frontier technology companies that will shape “What’s Next for Global Business.”
Named as one of the World’s “Top 35 science and technology innovators” by MIT Technology Review and one of the “World’s Most Influential Visionaries in Biotech” by Scientific American, Dr. Goel has been recognized globally by prestigious honors including 3 DARPA Breakthrough Awards, 2 USAID Grand Challenge Awards, NASA’s Galactic Challenge Award (with Elon Musk’s SpaceX), and multiple awards from DOD, DOE, AFOSR, and NSF. Dr. Goel has over 75 patents worldwide and has published in leading scientific journals like Nature, Scientific American, and PNAS. She has convened and chaired international conferences at Stanford and Harvard and delivered keynotes around the world. She testified in the US Senate for the $1.5 Billion dollar National Nanotechnology Initiative; advised President Obama’s PCAST for his Strategy for American Innovation; and served on the Triennial Review Board of the National Academy of Sciences and the Committee on Manufacturing Innovation of the National Academy of Engineering and on the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) council advising Canada’s Prime Minister. She has also served on the Nanotechnology & Scientific Advisory Boards of Lockheed Martin and PepsiCo Corporations.
Dr. Goel holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Physics from Harvard University, an MD from the Harvard-MIT Joint Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) at Harvard Medical School and a BS in Physics with Honors & Distinction from Stanford University.