Alpenglow’s story began when CEO Nicholas (Nick) Reder MD MPH, then a medical resident in the pathology department at the University of Washington, reached out to Dr. Jonathan Liu of the mechanical engineering department with a technical challenge.  While performing the conventional task of slicing tumor samples, preparing for analysis, and observing under a microscope, Nick thought there had to be a better way.  He asked Dr. Liu if there was a technology that could rapidly scan tissue samples to examine and analyze these tumors in a more efficient and automated manner.  This basic challenge led to a collaboration between Nick, Dr. Liu, Dr. Adam Glaser, and Dr. Larry True that resulted in the development of a patented open-top light-sheet microscope technology.  NIH Director Francis Collins recognized the team and technology as groundbreaking technology.

The team spun out Lightspeed Microscopy to commercialize this promising technology with the potential to accelerate drug development and improve clinical diagnostics.  Since then, the platform has been AI-enabled with cloud-based computing and analysis to produce remarkable 3D spatial analysis of tissue samples at high speed.   

In 2022, the company rebranded as Alpenglow Biosciences to reflect this evolution and an expanded research partnership offering. The naming was inspired by the alpenglow effect, an optical phenomenon that appears as brilliant colors on alpine landscapes as the sun shines its first and last light each day. The name is an analogy to how Alpenglow Biosciences sheds new light on drug development and clinical diagnostics, revealing unique insights that can only be delivered with its AI-enabled 3D imaging platform.

Recently, Alpenglow has been awarded up to a combined $24M in contracts from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and secured additional investment to further clinical product development.