Purvesh Khatri Hired by Inflammatix as Chief Scientific Officer

Inflammatix Inc. has appointed co-founder Purvesh Khatri, Ph.D., as chief scientific officer. Dr. Khatri had previously served as a scientific advisor to the company while also working as an associate professor at Stanford University’s Institute for Immunity, Transplantation, and Infection.
 
“Purvesh is a world leader in using complex clinical and biological datasets to develop new diagnostic, prognostic and predictive models, and new therapeutic insights. He has been with us since day one, and we are thrilled to bring him onboard full-time to lead our scientific teams through ever-greater discoveries and translational breakthroughs,” Inflammatix CEO and Co-Founder Timothy Sweeney, M.D., Ph.D., said.

Dr. Khatri has more than 15 years of experience in bioinformatics, computational biology, and translational medicine. He is well-known for his work on ontological and pathway analysis of high-throughput molecular, genomics, and proteomics data. Dr. Khatri developed the first ontology tool for analysis of microarray data, named Onto-Express, and has expanded into a suite of web-based open access tools, Onto-Tools.
 
His most recent work focused on developing computational methods for integrated, multi-cohort analysis of publicly available data to increase sample size, as well as better account for the heterogeneity observed in real world patient populations. Using these methods, he has identified highly specific and sensitive biomarkers for: (1) infectious diseases (sepsis, respiratory infections, tuberculosis), (2) acute solid-organ transplant rejection, and (3) cancer (pancreatic cancer, small cell and non-small cell lung cancer, mesothelioma). Dr. Khatri has authored or co-authored more than 140 papers and holds over 30 patents.
 
“I am excited to make a full-time commitment to Inflammatix as it continues its work to address important unmet needs in the diagnosis of acute illness. The team has made a great deal of progress since we founded the company, and I am delighted to join them in their next phase of growth and discovery,” Dr. Khatri said. “I am confident that we will continue to innovate to improve upon current diagnostic methods and enable the highest level of patient care possible.”
 
Inflammatix Inc., is a molecular diagnostics company developing diagnostics that rapidly read a patient’s immune system to improve care and reduce major public health burdens. The company’s initial focus is acute infections and sepsis, where its tests combine proprietary biomarkers and advanced machine learning to help physicians quickly get the right treatments to the right patients. Each test will be developed to run on the company’s sample-to-answer isothermal instrument platform, enabling the power of precision medicine at the point of care. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company is funded by Khosla Ventures, Northpond Ventures, D1 Capital Partners, Think.Health Ventures, the Stanford StartX Fund, and OSF Ventures.