Speaker

Federico Thei

CEO & Founder - Elements srl

Biography

Dr. Federico Thei is CEO and Founder at Elements srl (Italy) since 2014, responsible for strategic business development, new products concept design and industrial partnerships building, focusing on enabling nanopore technology to industrial applications.

Graduated in Telecommunication Engineering in 2007, he received the Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technologies in 2011 at the University of Bologna, Italy, with a research activity focused on low noise microelectronics systems for nanopore and biosensors readout.

He was visitor Ph.D. student at the University of Southampton (UK), University of Twente (NL) and several EU Companies in the electrophysiology field. For four years he was assistant professor for the electronic engineering course “Electronic digital systems” at the University of Bologna.

He attended in 2015 the Technology Venture Launch Program Express in Menlo Park, Silicon Valley, winning the final pitch competition. In 2018 he attended The Business side of Biomedical Start-ups course at the University of Bocconi, Milan. In 2025 he received the American Innovation prize from the Italian – USA foundation.

Coauthor of patents and papers in the microelectronic and nanopore field, he builds strong partnerships with Companies and research centers across the world, like EPFL, IMEC, Stanford NF, Bosch, offering the most advanced microelectronic solution for low noise and high bandwidth nanopore readout.

Talk(s)

10:50 AM

Microelectronic solutions for ultra low current – low noise - high bandwidth nanopore sensing

Solid-state nanopores, nanoscale apertures fabricated in silicon-based membranes, represent a promising breakthrough in next-generation biosensing technology. As analytes pass through nanopores, they generate weak electrical signals—unique current fingerprints that can be used for precise molecular identification. Capturing these signals without sacrificing sensitivity or bandwidth presents a significant microelectronic challenge.

ELEMENTS SRL, an Italian company specializing in ASIC design for ultra-low current sensing, addresses this challenge by developing high-precision electronic systems capable of measuring currents in the sub-nanoampere and picoampere range. Their portfolio includes both turnkey instruments and OEM solutions tailored to demanding sensing applications.

As a technology partner for imec’s solid-state nanopore system development, ELEMENTS provides the electronic infrastructure enabling high-throughput, high-bandwidth current sensing and real-time data processing for single-molecule protein sequencing.

This presentation will explore the key design strategies and challenges in CMOS microelectronics for nanopore applications, focusing on low-noise analog front-ends, wide-bandwidth performance in the MHz range, and scalable data acquisition systems. We will highlight how optimized electronic design can unlock the full potential of nanopore technology for early disease detection and proteomic applications, paving the way for faster, more accurate molecular diagnostics.