Prometheus Science
Written by Neuromag
Prometheus Science has a crystal clear goal in mind: To spread the availability of science and educa-
tion by creating affordable scientific-grade equipment. These tools will empower people to interact
with their environments around them, as well as enable them to find unique solutions tailored to
their own problems. To start, together with the NGO ‘Trend in Africa’ they have created the FlyPi, a
3D printed biology lab capable of scientific grade techniques. Things like high resolution microscopy,
optogenetics, and fluorescence imaging. It costs a mere fraction of the price of comparable equip-
ment, and the whole thing doesn’t look too bad either. So… who are these guys?
Hey, thanks for doing this interview
with the Neuromag. To get started
with a question that shouldn’t be too
hard: Who are you?
Thank you for having us, we also ap-
preciate all the work that goes into
Neuromag. Well, we’re three Tübingen
based scientists. There is André Maia
Chagas, who co-developed one of our
main products, the FlyPi. He is very
connected in the open source com-
munity, which you may know from a
prior article on Open Science in Neu-
romag. André is also our go to tech-
nical guy. There is also Valerio Raco,
who received his PhD specializing in
electromagnetic signals and tech-
niques. He’s taking on the financial
duties, and made our logo. Then there
is Eric McDermott, who completed
his MSc on vision restoration and op-
togenetics last year (and also wrote
an article about it, Issue 2). He brings
some additional experience within
the education sector, and he will also
be handling many of the communica-
tion aspects we have to navigate as a
startup, like “pitching” the idea. While
we do have different strengths, at this
point, we are also in essence Swiss-
army knives. Everyone is constantly
improving themselves and developing
new competencies in the many fields
needed to run a company.
Sounds like you have a solid team.
So, how did this all start? Where did
the idea to form a company together
come from?
Well, I think we all were looking for
something out on the horizon, and
a Tübingen-based startup accelera-
tor program for Medical Technology
popped up. We sat together and dis-
cussed potential ideas, and using the
FlyPi as our flagship product became
our golden egg, so to say, for our
launch into the business world. The
16 | NEUROMAG |November 2017
FlyPi gained some traction because it
won CUTEC, an award from Cambridge
focusing on innovative 3D printed de-
signs, and also was a semi-finalist for
the Hackaday prize in the citizen sci-
ence category. After taking this and
running with it, we’re feeling really
good with what we’ve been able to
accomplish in the last 6 months. For
example, we’ve just won “best pitch”
for Prometheus Science at the 2017
Tübingen MedTech Demo Day. We’re
taking this momentum and going for-
ward. A lot of people are expressing
interest in our vision, our product, and
have responded well to our team.
Alright, I’ve got to ask… What is your
vision, and what exactly is the FlyPi?
Our vision is simple. We want to pro-
vide affordable scientific equipment to
the world, open for use for everyone,
everywhere. We think that science
plays a big role in the well-being of a