We are excited to share that Semarion’s co-founder and CTO, Dr Tarun Vemulkar, was featured on Araceli Biosciences’ “Science in Real Time” podcast in Episode 6 (Spotlight), a conversation hosted by Carli Reyes on how Semarion is rethinking adherent cell handling with the SemaCyte platform.
In the episode, Tarun traces the journey from semiconductor manufacturing and precision materials engineering to building smart microcarriers for biology, and why the biggest bottlenecks in cell based discovery often come from the “in between” steps, culturing, transferring, and repeatedly re-plating adherent cells.
A memorable way to picture SemaCytes
Tarun describes a SemaCyte as a “microscopic flying carpet” for adherent cells, a mobile surface that keeps cells in an adherent morphology while enabling suspension style handling with pipettes and automation.
Key themes discussed
1) The origin story and the core insight
The conversation unpacks the early “aha” moment behind Semarion, if adherent cells want to stay attached to a surface, why not move the surface with them, instead of stripping and re-plating the cells.
2) From advanced materials to practical workflows
Tarun shares how Semarion borrowed precision fabrication approaches from the semiconductor world and adapted them to biology, while ensuring the materials and process changes preserve the biological outputs researchers expect.
3) Multiplexing for faster, denser screening
A major focus is cell multiplexing, pooling multiple cell models in the same microwell and decoding identity via optical barcodes on SemaCytes, enabling multi-cell panels to be screened far more efficiently.
4) Where it can go next
Tarun highlights future directions including complex, scarce cell types and co-cultures, for example patient derived material and neuronal systems, where miniaturisation and multiplexing can expand experimental breadth without expanding cost and time.
Listen or watch
The episode is available via Araceli’s ScienceIRT page, and is also distributed on major podcast platforms.
If you would like to explore how SemaCytes can fit into your existing assay and automation stack, get in touch via our website or follow Semarion on LinkedIn for new datasets, workflows, and application notes.