About Magellan

Marc Hansen was trained as a cell biologist, earning a PhD at Stanford University and completing a post-doc at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah.

Dr Hansen led an academic career at Brigham Young University from 2005 to 2020 that included teaching and research, where he published work using a wide array of technical approaches from live cell imaging (including building a two photon microscope) to chemical genetics to proteomics.

Research at BYU labs is driven largely by undergraduate research assistants, which dynamic connected Dr Hansen with Marc Oddou (co-founder). Dr Hansen's chemical genetics project led to his becoming involved in biotech, founding a cancer drug discovery company that ultimately produced a new compound now entering clinical evaluation.

Dr Hansen's proteomics project involved a grad student that spent a few months processing samples by mass spectrometry and several years analyzing the resulting data. Frustration with the pace of data analysis later led to building Magellan's tools.

Driven by an interest in using many different approaches to tackle difficult biological questions, he developed large data analytics understanding while on a 2012-13 sabbatical at the Systems Biology Group at Imperial College London.

Marc and Dan Olsen (co-founder) began interacting in 2013 in the context of a commercial technology innovation program that brought STEM majors together with business students, later joining forces to tackle mass spec data problems.

Dan Olsen, a former professor of Computer Science at BYU, ASU, and Carnegie Mellon, now CTO of Magellan Bioanalytics.  Dr. Olsen is responsible for overseeing the company's technology development and strategy. He brings his expertise in computer science and data analysis to the company's efforts to improve the accuracy and efficiency of biomarker discovery and validation.

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In addition to his work at Magellan Bioanalytics, Dr. Olsen is a well-respected researcher and teacher in the field of computer science. At BYU, he taught courses on computer graphics and visualization, and has received numerous awards for his teaching and mentorship. He has also published many influential papers in the field of computer graphics and human-computer interaction, and has served in leadership roles in professional organizations such as SIGGRAPH and the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.

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In addition, Dan is sought after as a software IP expert, and as a consultant to software Venture Capitalists. 

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B.S. BYU,  Ph.D, UPenn, Computer Science

Marc studied Biotechnology and business at BYU, where he worked in the lab of Marc Hansen, co-founder, forming a connection around biotech entrepreneurship.

Marc also spent time at the Hunstman Cancer Institute, working in drug discovery at the Center for Investigational Therapeutics, while earning his MBA.  

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Working as a market and financial analyst at BioMedTracker (informa) in San Diego led Marc into the world of biotech business development and licensing.  He has negotiated license deals with universities, biotech, and pharma. 

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Marc was a co-founder of Rincon Bioscience, a cancer drug discovery CRO, and has been an advisor on several other biotech start ups and spin-out technologies.