About us – MatchstickTechnologies

About Matchstick Technologies

Our Mission

Our MISSION is to develop easy-to-use and robust technologies for spawning tomorrow’s medical breakthroughs. Matchstick Technologies, Inc. develops instruments and tools for the life sciences. Its platform technology, PIXUL®, is a high-throughput sample preparation instrument that shears DNA and chromatin samples with industry-leading sample consistency and repeatability. The Matchstick team includes experts in high power ultrasound and cavitation, as well as chromatin researchers who developed the original Fast-ChIP and MATRIX-ChiP high-throughput systems.

A Brief History

Matchstick Technologies was founded in 2015 by University of Washington researchers Karol Bomsztyk, MD and Tom Matula, PhD, who wanted to use technology to bring better and easier-to-use tools to the biomedical research community. Their initial efforts revolved around sample preparation in epigenetics. Procedures to prepare chromatin and DNA are time consuming, labor intensive, and prone to errors. Too often, Karol would find himself complaining about the inefficiencies in sample preparation; “it’s not a good way to make a living!” He previously invented the “Fast-ChIP” protocol, and was searching for a solution to sample preparation when he came across Tom, a cavitation expert at the University of Washington. Together, they re-envisioned the sample preparation process, and came up with the idea that led to PIXUL®.

Matchstick Technologies Board Members

Chairman of the Board: Karol Bomsztyk, MD. is a Yale trained practicing physician and biotechnology developer. His inventions include ion microsensors, Fast-ChIP and more recently the high throughput Matrix-ChIP. He is a co-inventor of PIXUL®.

His accolades include Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association, the MERIT Award from the NIH and elected membership to the prestigious American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians. Karol’s driving ambition is to provide tools that can help patients.

CEO and President: Tom Matula, Ph.D. trained as a physicist in his undergrad and graduate studies. As an undergrad at Fresno State University, he helped run the department’s Astronomy collection, designing and building a solar flare detector. After graduate school he worked in the field of sonoluminescence trying to understand how a cavitation bubble can get so hot it emits light. That work led to his receiving the DoD Young Scientist and Engineer award and the Presidential Early Career Award.

Most of his publications involve either understanding or using cavitation. He is a Senior member of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. He holds patents in the fields of Lithotripsy, Diagnostic Ultrasound Imaging, Cell Sorting, and genomics/epigenetics. He is currently Director of two Centers at the University of Washington focused on biomedical ultrasound and technology development.

Independent Director: John Fluke, Jr. (Chairman, Fluke Capital Management, LP) provides Matchstick Technologies with extensive corporate governance expertise focused on successful commercialization of emerging companies’ technologies.

His current and previous board member experiences include: Athira Pharma, Inc. (2014-present NASDAQ); MatchStick Technologies, Inc. (2015-present – Private); ReelSONAR, Inc. (Private); Pluristyx, Inc. (Private); Precision Genome Engineering (2010-2014 – acquired by Bluebird Biotechnology, Inc. NASDAQ: BLUE); Reedholm Systems Corporation (2015-present – Private:); PACCAR Inc (NASDAQ: PCAR) Fluke Corp. – CEO 1983-1989, chairman 1984-1990 and director 1983-1998 (NYSE: FLK acquired by Danaher Inc. 1998 NYSE: DHR – spunout as Fortive Inc. 2015-preent NYSE: FTV); PRIMUS International (2002-2005 – PCP Berkshire Hathaway); American Seafoods Group, LLC (2001-2006 Private); Cell Therapeutics Inc. (2002-2005 NASDAQ: CTIC)