Alumni spotlight
Proudly sponsored by TD Insurance
Sabina Bruehlmann, PhD’04 (Biomedical Engineering)
Cow tails to gut microbiome
Entrepreneur Sabina Bruehlmann helped pioneer biomedical engineering in Alberta
In high school, Sabina Bruehlmann, PhD, thought she’d become an English teacher. But an astute physics teacher recognized her “engineer brain” and suggested a scholarship for a summer-long engineering camp. Goodbye Hamlet and hello HVAC.
In 1997, when she finished her undergrad in mechanical engineering, Bruehlmann felt “completely uninspired” about the idea of working with gears and the like. So, she applied for a year-long biomedical engineering internship in Switzerland. She didn’t know much about biomedical engineering—it was early days for the field—but she knew she’d like skiing the Alps.
Turns out she also liked biomechanics and “the thrill of engineering within the confines of the human body.” Bruehlmann came to the Schulich School of Engineering for a doctorate with Neil Duncan, PhD. “Though I was in mechanical, Neil was in civil and it caused administrative difficulties at the time. But the collaborative work was effortless,” she says.
Students from all engineering disciplines worked with clinicians and scientists at the newly formed Joint Injury and Arthritis Research Group. “It was very experimental and transformative,” says Bruehlmann, co-founder and CEO of Nimble Science.
Small startup companies are a great place for women to thrive, maybe because of our stereotypical ‘multi-tasker’ element.
Sabina Bruehlmann, PhD’04 (Biomedical Engineering)
Co-founder and CEO of Nimble Science
She enjoyed the transdisciplinary nature of the work and the potential to solve big problems. She was deciphering key cellular mechanisms that lead to chronic back pain and remembers many trips to a Red Deer slaughterhouse to recover cow tails to study live cell mechanics.
When Bruehlmann graduated in 2004, there were few, if any, biomedical companies in Alberta. “There was very little opportunity to take it to the next step,” she says. “I ended up starting companies more out of necessity. If you wanted to work for a biomedical company, you had to have a role in starting it.”
She worked with California-based venture capital groups that wanted access to expertise at UCalgary and formed a company to collaborate with professors to help investors assess the technical merit of potential investments. After honing commercialization skills at Innovate Calgary, she co-founded Zephyr Sleep Technologies in 2010 to address sleep apnea. In 2019, she co-founded Nimble Science, which has developed a capsule that’s ingested to collect microbiome samples from “previously inaccessible” parts of the small intestine, data needed by companies working on a wide range of personalized approaches for diagnostics and therapeutics.
“It feels game changing,” she says. “We’re delivering novel microbiome datasets to companies around the world and have a few exciting projects kicking off at the University of Calgary. It’s immensely satisfying to deliver a solution to leading scientists that will help them continue to innovate.”
She likes the “roller coaster” of entrepreneurship and enjoys mentoring Schulich students doing co-op terms. Nimble’s hired plenty of Schulich grads, many of whom are women. “We hire the best candidates,” she says. “Small startup companies are a great place for women to thrive, maybe because of our stereotypical ‘multi-tasker’ element.”
Alberta’s biomedical industry has grown dramatically since Bruehlmann studied cow tails two decades ago. “It was an exciting time at Schulich,” she says. “We barely set foot on campus. We were immersed within the hospital setting, sharing offices with microbiologists and surgeons. It was an innovative approach and I credit Schulich’s leadership and passion for what we have today in the province.