Alec Nielsen is Co-Founder and CEO at Asimov, a synthetic biology company building tools to program living cells for therapeutic applications.

Alec earned his PhD in Biological Engineering from MIT in the Voigt Lab and holds a B.S. in Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington. He is a Siebel Scholar and was an NDSEG Fellow.

Alec co-created Cello, a platform for automated genetic circuit design released in 2016 with MIT and Boston University collaborators. He has published extensively in synthetic biology with highly cited research in genetic circuit engineering.

Asimov has raised over $200 million from top investors including Andreessen Horowitz, CPP Investments, Horizons Ventures, and Fidelity. The company partners with over 25 organizations spanning top pharmas, biotechs, and CDMOs.

Asimov's platform integrates proprietary cell lines, software for genetic design, and over 1,000 experimentally validated genetic parts. Recent partnerships include AGC Biologics and Cytiva to advance viral vector production and biologics manufacturing.