Led by Harvard University’s George Whitesides, DFA was founded in 2007 by a group of scientists and entrepreneurs with a shared commitment to saving lives and alleviating disease in developing countries and other resource-poor settings through low-cost, innovative, practical diagnostic devices.
| December 2007 | Incorporated in Delaware |
|---|---|
| April 2008 | Wins Harvard Business School 12th Annual Business Plan Contest |
| May 2008 | Wins MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, the competitions first non-profit winner |
| June 2008 | Receives confirmation of 501(c)(3) status from IRS |
| November 2008 | Harvard University wins 5 year grant from the Gates Foundation, with DFA designated as subcontractor for the development of a Critical Organ Function Test for the liver |
| January 2009 | Establishes research and development laboratory in Cambridge, MA; launches program to develop Critical Organ Function Tests |
| July 2009 | Agreement signed with Harvard University giving DFA exclusive licensing rights for diagnostics technologies developed in the laboratories of George Whitesides |
The initial DFA business plan won both the Harvard Business School and MIT $100K business plan competitions in 2008 – the first time for a single team to win both competitions and the first non-profit to win the MIT competition (left to right: Carol Waghorne, Krishna Yeshwant, Gilbert Tang, DFA Co-founder Haya Sindi, Roozbeh Ghaffari, and Jon Puz)
