Dr. Sebastiaan Theuns is CEO & co-founder of PathoSense, a spin-off from Ghent University which offers innovative sequencing-based service for the animal health industry. We focus on infectious disease diagnostics, microbiome research and pathogen whole genome sequencing. 

In 2010, Sebastiaan obtained his diploma as a veterinarian (Ghent University, Belgium), after which he successfully defended his PhD in 2015 (promoters Hans Nauwynck & Jelle Matthijnssens). He then developed expertise in veterinary vaccine development during a postdoctoral VLAIO Innovation Mandate. Sebastiaan has always shown interest in the diagnostics of infectious diseases in different animal species and saw a huge opportunity for innovation with the emergence of new DNA/RNA sequencing technologies. 

Since 2017, his research has led to the development of a complete 'sample-to-diagnostic-interpretation' platform for infectious diseases in veterinary medicine. No prior selection is needed. His research culminated in the UGent spin-off PathoSense in October 2020. 

Since then, PathoSense has been used in more than 40 animal species by veterinarians all over Europe and has become accessible via frontline partner laboratories in 7 European countries. The next step is to scale the platform further globally. 

We believe that innovation is crucial and that is why R&D will remain an important spearhead in our further development & scaling of the company. PathoSense acquired successful industrial PhD research projects focusing on AMR, the respiratory microbiome and virulence factor identification. These projects are in close collaboration with Ghent University and University of Antwerp. Furthermore, Sebastiaan has setup wide collaborations with different Universities in Europe. Sebastiaan and PathoSense have already been selected for several prestigious start-up accelerator programs, including the Belgian MedTechAccelerator in 2018 and StartIt@KBC in 2020-2021, and was admitted to the Vlerick Business School Scale-Up Masterclass of 2022 & V-Entrepreneurs network. Sebastiaan is a co-author of >40 scientific publications and the inventor of one patent. He has been promoter of several doctoral candidates. Furthermore, Sebastiaan has been giving lectures and keynotes about diagnostics and genomics to Bachelor and Master students, the animal health industry and at prestigious international conferences.