Our Origin Story

How We Started 21 Grams

21 Grams Assays, Inc. was started by Barb Scheuer and Russ Hart in May 2021.  Russ and Barb (R&B) first met in 1987 in Minneapolis, MN.  Russ, a chemist PhD, along with 3 other guys, had started a VC-funded in vitro diagnostics company, London Diagnostics, and was its first CEO.  He moved back into the lab and hired Barb into her first R&D job.

London Diagnostics was eventually sold and the technology is now in use in Siemens ADVIA immunoassay systems.  Russ has been involved with the Abbott Labs. ARCHITECT immunoassay systems, and he was the inspiration for turning a failed immunoassay concept into the Beckman Access immunoassay system with the ability to measure 100 assays per hour and over 50 assays.

R&B started a small life sciences company, Assay Designs, Inc. (ADI), in the early 1990’s and grew it to be the most advanced immunoassay and detection kit company in the world. R&B married in Minneapolis in 1992. They left ADI in 2007 and started Arbor Assays, Inc. 

Arbor Assays took over where ADI left off, building supersensitive kits for a number of molecules. Arbor Assays was turned into an employee-owned company in 2017 and this started with R&B’s “retirement” from Arbor Assays.  21 Grams started from these humble, sometimes tortuous beginnings.