Safeguarding the World’s Food Supply

Winning the Race Against Emerging Pathogens

Our Mission

We are committed to protecting the world’s food supply by leveraging nature with cutting edge microbiology and microfluidics technology to combat plant pests and pathogens as new threats arise.

Our Story

Professors at Texas A&M University, Arum Han (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Paul de Figueiredo (Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology; Veterinary Pathobiology) initiated a collaboration over a decade ago to apply state-of-the-art engineering approaches to addressing major challenges in microbiology, immunology, and infectious disease research. Their work led to several breakthroughs that were only possible because of the fusion of these two disciplines, including the development of systems that enable the rapid screening of microbial cells for individual isolates with desired features.

After ten years of working together on academic research, with $40M combined investment from DARPA, NIH, and NSF, and nine patents, they felt the desire to make a concrete difference in the world. They realized their research could be applied to develop urgently needed disease and pest treatments in record time. This desire was shared by Adrian Guzman, at the time a student in the Han lab.

The three researchers founded SUHO (meaning “protection” in Korean) with the hope of ushering in a second green revolution to protect the planet’s food supply. They recruited Daphne Preuss, veteran agtech and biotech entrepreneur with a track record of successful company building, to lead the business.

Leadership

Our leadership is internationally renowned in the fields of microbiology and microfluidics, and has a proven track record of building successful agriculture and biotech companies.

Daphne Preuss
CEO

Dr. Daphne Preuss is an entrepreneur focused on bringing innovation to food and agriculture systems. She previously founded, built, and served for eleven years as President and CEO of Chromatin Inc., a crop breeding and seed company that delivered sorghum to farmers in over 50 countries. She has often served as a board member or operating partner to guide startups through commercialization and intellectual property strategy, value inflections and exits, including companies focused on chickpea, hemp, indigo, and greenhouse-grown crops. Daphne was previously a Professor and Howard Hughes Investigator at the University of Chicago where she led public and private programs to bring genetic improvements to crops.

Paul de Figueiredo

Co-founder

Paul is a founder of SUHO and a member of the company's Scientific Advisory Board. He is also a Professor in the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology in the Texas A&M Health Center, and in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University. Paul holds degrees from Rice University (B.A., Mathematics and Political Science), Stanford (M.A., Religious Studies), and Cornell (Ph.D., Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology), and completed postdoctoral training at MIT and the University of Washington. He has broad experience and training in molecular biology, cell biology, microbiology, and biochemistry, with specific expertise in host-pathogen interactions and biotechnology development. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and his research has been supported by awards from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH, NSF, USDA, DTRA, and DARPA, as well as several other private foundations.

Adrian Guzman
CTO/Co-founder

The company’s technology development is led by Dr. Adrian Guzman, CTO and co-founder of SUHO Biotechnology, who is responsible for technology development, investigative screening, R&D oversight and laboratory operations. Dr. Guzman has 10+ years of experience in microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip device development, with 8+ years of that experience primarily being focused on developing highly integrated next-generation complex droplet microfluidic systems for screening and other applications. Dr. Guzman has 10 peer-reviewed publications relating to biological microfluidic assay development, six-sigma lean launch experience, and has participated in the NSF iCORPS program. He successfully acquired a Phase 1 DARPA-SBIR grant for his first venture which is now on a successful path toward market launch. He holds an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering, a Master's in electrical and computer engineering, and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Engineering, all from Texas A&M University. Throughout these experiences he has collaborated extensively with researchers from various life science disciplines and has a proven track record in working with and leading multidisciplinary R&D teams.

Arum Han
Co-founder

Arum is a founder of SUHO and a member of the company's Scientific Advisory Board. He is the Texas Instruments Professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Chancellor’s EDGES Fellow and the Presidential Impact Fellow of Texas A&M University. He also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is a Graduate Faculty of the Texas A&M Health Science Center, Faculty of the Texas A&M Institute for Neuroscience, and Faculty of Toxicology. He holds degrees from Seoul National University (B.S., Electrical Engineering), University of Cincinnati (M.S., Electrical Engineering), and Georgia Institute of Technology (Ph.D., Electrical Engineering). His research expertises are in the development of microfluidic, lab-on-a-chip, and organ-on-a-chip systems and their applications in synthetic biology, microbiology, host-pathogen interactions, infectious disease, and microbial bioproduction. He has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and his research is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH, NSF, DARPA, DTRA, ARL, ARO, USDA, as well as several other private foundations. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the journal Biomedical Microdevices, and also serves as editors/editorial board members of many leading journals.