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Mikael Kubista
Czech-born Swedish chemist and entrepreneur From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Mikael Kubista (born 13 August 1961) is a Czech-born Swedish chemist and entrepreneur who works in the field of molecular diagnostics. Since 2007 he is serving as Head of the Laboratory of Gene Expression at the Biotechnology Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences.[1]
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Early life
Kubista was born in the former Czechoslovakia in 1961.[2] His parents relocated to Sweden in 1968.[citation needed] When Czechoslovakia was invaded in the so called Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia the family decided to stay.[citation needed]
In 1984 and 1986, Kubista won the Swedish junior championships in bridge together with Nils Åhlen and Stefan Rebner, and with Stefan Andreasson and Niklas Karlsson, respectively.[3]
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Education
He completed his undergraduate studies at University of Gothenburg, earning a B.Sc. degree in chemistry in 1984.[4] He then pursued a Licentiate in Physical Chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, which he completed in 1986. Kubista obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry from Chalmers University of Technology.[5] Following his doctoral studies, he conducted postdoctoral research at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and Yale University in New Haven, US.[2][6] Additionally, he has held visiting professor positions at various universities, including the University of Maryland in College Park, US, in June 2000, and the University of A Coruña in Spain, during September–November 2003 and July 2006 to June 2007.[2]
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Career
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Academic career
Kubista began his academic career in 1991 as an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Chemistry at Chalmers University of Technology.[2] From 1993 to 1997, he was an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the same institution. Following this, he held the position of professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Chalmers University of Technology from 1997 to 2006.[2]
Entrepreneurial activities
In 1998 Kubista founded LightUp Technologies AB after his research finding of LightUp probes,[7] a company that develops real-time PCR tests for human infectious diseases.[8] In 2001, Kubista cofounded TATAA Biocenter with Neven Zoric and professor Anders Ståhlberg, with professors Michael Pfaffl, Stephen Bustin and Vladimir Benes as scientific advisors.[9][failed verification] TATAA Biocenter accepted financing from Care Equity in 2021.[10]
Kubista's research led to the establishments of MultiD Analyses AB, which develops GenEx software for gene expression data analysis.[citation needed] In 2020, Kubista co-founded SimSen Diagnostics a company focused on developing technology for liquid biopsy analyses.[11]
TATAA Biocenter
In 2021, Care Equity, controlled by investor Peter Batesko, invested in TATAA Biocenter.[12][9] To facilitate the investment, a new holding company, Bioholdings LP, was established to acquire TATAA. During restructuring connected to TATAA’s COVID-19 testing business, Kubista and his co-founders, advised by a law firm, carried out an upstream merger between two holding entities. This violated a clause in the agreement that prohibited share transfers without written consent. Peter Batesko, General Partner of Care Equity, refused to register the founders' ownership. In June 2023 Batesko dismissed Kubista as CEO and forfeited the founders' shares without compensation.[13] Peter Batesko and companies he controls then sued Kubista, the TATAA founders and their lawyer in what Kubista's lawyer claims to be a SLAPP lawsuit.[14] As of October 2025, legal proceedings related to the merger dispute remain ongoing in the Swedish courts.[15] Kubista also sued the law firm for negligent advice.[16]
Precision BioAnalytics
In 2025 Kubista together with Jens Björkman, Robert Sjöback and Fredrik Adlercreutz founded Precision BioAnalytics,[17][18][19] around a new preanalytical procedure that increases sensitivity and improves precision of the preanalytical process in molecular analysis,[20] with seed financing from the Swedish infra-structure CCRM-Nordic.[21]
Selected findings and publications
Kubista has close to 300 publications,[22] been cited more than 40000 times and has an h-index of 71.[23]
- Studied and identified chromophores and a variety of dyes commonly used as biomolecule labels like: tryptophan, DAPI, fluorescein,[24] thiazole orange, and BEBO.[7]
- Uncovered mechanism of oncogene activation involving the formation of internal G-quadruplexes.[25]
- Designed a probe that exhibit luminescence upon binding to specific nucleic acids.[26]
- Techniques for gene expression at the level of individual cells and subcellular compartments.[27]
- Discovered the Regeneration Initiating Cells (RICs) [28]
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References
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