Dimitri Aubert, PhD, CEO of Vesiculab Ltd.
Dimitri Aubert, PhD, CEO of Vesiculab Ltd.
Biography
Dimitri Aubert, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Vesiculab Ltd. He graduated from a degree in Chemistry from the University of Caen, France in 1998, which in included one year Erasmus placement at the University of Sussex, UK.
He completed his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Nottingham, UK, and after a brief postdoc, in 2025 he subsequently started a career in scientific equipment and business development, successively working in the chromatography industry while at LC Service in Turvey, UK, in the liquid displacement sector at MicroPump in St Neots, UK(now part of IDEX corporation), as well as in the Raman spectroscopy industry as EMEA sales manager at Ahura Scientific in Wilmington, USA (now part of ThermoFisher Scientific) and at Cobalt Light Systems in Harwell, UK (now part of Agilent Technologies).
He entered the field of nanomedicines and extracellular vesicles with leadership roles as Sales Director at Izon Science in Nottingham, UK and Managing Director at NanoFCM Co., Ltd. In Nottingham, UK, establishing the company’s international operations.
In 2023, he became founder and CEO at Vesiculab Ltd in Nottingham, UK, launching its first products in June. The company’s objective is to offer reagent and consumable solutions to streamline sample preparation for extracellular vesicle and nanomedicine research. With a user base already spanning the five continents, the company aims to become a leading partner for scientists exploring the frontiers of nano-bioscience.
Dimitri has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications on extracellular vesicles and nanoparticles. His dedication to advancing bio-nanotechnology, fostering academic collaboration, and driving innovation is reflected in Vesiculab’s mission.
Interview
NanoSphere: Tell us a bit about yourself—your background, journey, and what led you to where you are today.
Dimitri: From early in my research days in chemistry lab in France, and then in the UK, I was fascinated by the importance of analytical instruments, and their companion consumables, and how they could shape the speed and quality of scientific discoveries. Towards the end of my PhD studies at the University of Nottingham, I did take part in business courses that planted the seed of a career outside of research in either academia or pharma/biotech companies. My first roles were formative in learning how to perform in sales and account management, and how customer success was just as important as revenues. As Sales manager for Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA), I found, recruited and trained distributors to widen the reach of my respective companies in what was the second biggest market for scientific instrumentation at the time.
The business cultures in countries as different as Spain, UAE and Tunisia made the role extremely varied and reinforced my convictions that while local customs my be respected, globally effective standards do exist and must be spread in order for industries to stay competitive. Joining Izon Science introduced me to analysis at the nanoscale, a sector of scientific research that is multi-disciplinary and in great need of solutions to assist its growth. In addition to spearhead the commercial development of resistive-pulse sensing (RPS)-based instruments, I also took part in the commercialisation of a range of size-exclusion chromatography columns that are now widely used for isolation extracellular vesicles (EVs), cell-secreted nanoparticles taking part in intercellular communication that are studied for both their diagnostic and therapeutic potential.
Finally, joining NanoFCM in 2018, I was able to build a fully-fledged operation serving Europe and North America from a base in Nottingham. Hiring and training staff often straight form university, I built-up the company’s user base to the point that it was established supplier to EV and nanomedicine researchers by early 2023. By that stage, I came to conclusion that I accumulated all the skills to become an entrepreneur, and circumstances drove me to that conclusion, leading to the start of Vesiculab’s commercial activities.
NanoSphere: Having worked closely with academic labs, instrument developers, and distributors across continents, what have you learned about scaling nanomedicine tools without diluting scientific rigor?
Dimitri: While the scientific instrumentation companies might be perceived as a necessary evil at best, and an annoyance at worse, by some scientists, the reality is that their success depends on their ability to deliver real benefits to the end user. This interdependence is very important, and it makes partnership between companies and academia both frequent and rewarding. Collaborations ultimately make product better, as user experience is very different to in-house product development. Real-world applications, for instance using actual lipid nanoparticles or liposomes to evaluate new products, is much more relevant than using nanoparticle standards. Both manufacturers and distributors or scientific solutions should seek closeness to their users, to ensure a long-lasting impact stemming from any investment. This philosophy requires both drive and investment, but it ultimately makes companies successful in the long run, because scientists integrate en masse their particular technology or products, featuring them in published articles and presentations or posters at conferences.
NanoSphere: Can you tell us more on your company Vesiculab? Reference materials like Vesi-Ref-CD63-mNG address a long-standing reproducibility gap in EV analytics. In your view, what has been the real cost to the field of operating without such benchmarks?
Dimitri: The idea behind Vesiculab’s creation was to make companion reagents or consumables products to analytical instruments for nanoscale available under one roof. Sample preparation workflow being fairly identical for EVs, LNPs, liposomes and viruses, scientists in either disciplines are allowed to benefit from progress made in adjacent fields through a common, knowledgeable supplier. Some of these innovation are home-designed and produced, and others are stemming from collaborations with academic groups or biotech companies with less exposure to the field of analysis at the nanoscale. While the company’s range has expanded over its three years existence, it is split in four main categories: Isolation/purification, labelling, reference/calibration and preservation.
Taking as an example our fluorescent extracellular vesicle reference material Vesi-Ref CD63 mNG, which stems from the work of André Görgens, Oscar Wiklander and Samir EL Andaloussi at the Karolinska Institute, we have taken an existing concept to a new level of importance in the field. Because this engineered material has a very high degree of expression of the tetraspanin protein CD663 as opposed to earlier products, it can be efficiently use to normalize results in a variety of analytical techniques, including (nano)flow cytometry, fluorescent nanoparticle tracking analysis (F-NTA), super-resolution microscopy (dSTORM, TIRF), Interferometric Light Microscopy (ILM), ELISA, etc. The combination of complementary technologies is the cornerstone of an orthogonal characterization of any material, which is the preferred approach for drug development. Being at the crossroad between these experiments makes for Vesi-Ref materials the enablers of reliable analytics.
NanoSphere: If there’s one key message or insight you’d like to share with readers about the future of nanomedicine, what would it be?
Dimitri: My message would be: “don’t rush your candidates to evaluation, make sure you know what they truly are first”. This stems from real-life experience, meeting with heads of biotechs companies struggling to understand why they couldn’t replicate results batch to batch, and later acknowledging poor control over their output, or even impurities contributing to an effect. While I understand the pressures to advance projects at pace, the cost of going too far with a poorly understood nanoscale formulation can lead to major consequences in later stages of drug development (CMC), as was learned during the COVID vaccine era. By updating their workflows to the latest standards, formulation scientists can remove these uncertainty and progress towards efficiency assays with greater confidence with their outcomes.