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.
July 2015: Awarded a Saving Lives at Birth grant for a new antenatal test
August 2014: Nominated for a $250K seed grant through USAID to develop an equipment- free, qualitative HIV test for infants that reduces the turnaround time for results from over one month to under an hour.
August 2013: First field demonstration of DFA's agriculture and livestock prototypes in Kenya.
July 2013: Awarded $2M Grand Challenges Exploration Phase II grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue development of the point-of-care micronutrient diagnostic in collaboration with MC10.
Nov. 2012: Awarded $2.6M grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a novel diagnostic for the assessment of immunity status against tetanus and measles to support vaccination efforts.
October 2012: Marcus Lovell Smith joined DFA as the new CEO and President
March 2012: First field study of DFA's liver function test begins in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
November 2011: Awarded a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a point-of-care, paper-based diagnostic for nucleic acid detection.
July 2011: Awarded one of 19 Saving Lives at Birth Phase I grants from USAID for the development of screening diagnostics for at-risk pregnancies
February 2011: UK Government and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation award Diagnostics For All $2.99 million to develop three new agricultural tests
January 2010: Una Ryan joins DFA as CEO and President
July 2009: Agreement signed with Harvard University giving DFA exclusive licensing rights for diagnostics technologies developed in the laboratories of George Whitesides
January 2009: Establishes research and development laboratory in Cambridge, MA
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
October 2008: Martinez, Phillips, Whitesides publish article describing novel three-dimensional patterned-paper diagnostics in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
June 2008: Patrick Beattie joins DFA as first full-time employee
May 2008: DFA Business Plan Team Wins MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, the competition’s first non-profit winner
April 2008: DFA Business Plan Team Wins Harvard Business School 12th Annual Business Plan Contest
December 2007: Incorporated in Delaware by Carmichael Roberts
January 2007: Martinez, Phillips, Butte, and Whitesides publish the first paper describing the patterned-paper technology that would form the base of DFA's approach to low-cost diagnostics.