DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS AWARDEE | 2026
Mr. Kalyan Handique is the CEO and Co-Founder of GoGo Innovation, Inc., and serves as President of the Michigan Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Association.
After completing his B.Tech. from IIT Bombay, he went on to earn a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2000.
In 2000, Mr. Handique founded his first company, HandyLab, based on his doctoral research on an integrated microfluidic chip. The company developed and commercialised automated systems for hospitals and laboratories to test for infectious diseases and was acquired by Becton Dickinson (BD) in 2009 for $275 million. After a brief tenure at BD, he co-founded another biotech startup, Celsee, alongside his wife in Ann Arbor.
Celsee developed products for the research market, ranging from circulating tumour cell detection to single cell sequencing, and was acquired by Bio-Rad Laboratories in 2020 in a deal valued at over $100 million. He subsequently served as Chief Innovation Officer at Bio-Rad for more than five and a half years before departing in early 2026 to focus on his entrepreneurial pursuits.
From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Handique was part of a highly interdisciplinary team at the University of Michigan that developed the first-ever integrated nanoliter DNA analysis chip. Their 1998 article in Science was recognised as a breakthrough technology of the year. The work has since been cited over 2,000 times, and the first version of the chip is now displayed at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.
At HandyLab, he was the lead inventor behind the company’s flagship product, now known as BD Max — a device deployed in more than 100 countries with over two dozen FDA-cleared molecular diagnostic assays. Since acquiring HandyLab, BD has generated over a billion dollars in revenue from this platform.
At Celsee, he served as the lead designer for Celselect, a circulating tumour cell enrichment device that enables the retrieval of rare tumour cells from blood, offering an alternative to painful biopsies. Today, Celselect is widely used in translational cancer research across the world.
Mr. Handique holds over 450 issued patents globally, with hundreds of additional applications currently pending — reflecting a career defined by innovation and technological advancement. He is a recipient of the NEF Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2009), the “Creators 2000” Crain’s Detroit Business Award (2000), and the Martin Luther King Spirit Award (2000). In 2011, Celsee received the Grand Prize at the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition.
Interests & Hobbies: I enjoy mentoring startup entrepreneurs and following global technology trends. In my leisure time, I play tennis and pursue cooking and gardening.
A Personal Note: During the Performing Arts Show for Hostel 7 in 1995, “Harlequin Chevalerie,” I sewed the costumes for the entire cast. I bought fabric, paints, and other supplies, and with the help of a borrowed sewing machine from a mess worker, stitched the costumes for the entire cast in a week.
