Impact |Nanopore technology for protein sequencing and personalized healthcare

In the coming weeks the nominees for the Ben Feringa Impact Award 2026 will introduce themselves and their impactful research or project. The winners will be announced on 9 June. This week: Giovanni Maglia with the research on nanopore technology for protein sequencing and personalized healthcare.

Who are you?

I’m Giovanni Maglia, a chemist and biophysicist. Born in Bologna, I trained as a pharmaceutical chemist before earning a PhD in chemistry at the University of Birmingham, followed by postdoctoral work in Oxford on DNA nanopore sequencing. I started my independent research group in Leuven in 2010 with an ERC Starting Grant, and joined the University of Groningen in 2014, where I became full professor in 2021. My laboratory has spent two decades developing nanopores into tools for studying — and now sequencing — single proteins. In 2021, I founded Portal Biotech to translate that work beyond the lab bench. I am affiliated with the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) at the University of Groningen.

Can you explain what your research was about?

Portal Biotech is the spin-out company I founded in 2021 to translate two decades of academic research on nanopore biophysics into a real-world protein sequencing platform. Where DNA sequencing has transformed biology and medicine, proteins — the actual workhorses of the cell — have remained largely opaque at the single-molecule level. Portal Biotech is changing that. We are commercializing the proprietary nanopore technology developed in my Groningen lab, building instruments and chemistries that can identify and sequence individual proteins directly from biological samples. With around $46 million raised in investment so far and a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers across the UK and the Netherlands, the company is moving a fundamentally Groningen-born technology toward the clinic and the wider scientific community. I serve as Chief Scientific Officer.

What made the research impactful?

Proteins shape how we live, age, and get sick. Yet we still cannot read them the way we read DNA. Current proteomics methods rely on indirect measurements, complex sample preparations, and instruments costing hundreds of thousands of euros, which complicate proteomic research and keeps it out of reach for routine medical care. By making single-molecule protein sequencing possible on a compact, accessible device, Portal Biotech aims to do for proteins what next-generation sequencing did for DNA: democratise it.

The societal payoff is concrete, from better research tools to earlier detection of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases from a drop of blood. This will allow more precise and personalized drug development and developing proteomic tools that can travel from a Groningen lab bench to a clinic anywhere in the world.

What was your personal motivation to conduct this research?

My motivation has always been simple: I wanted the science we do in Groningen to leave the lab to have an impact beside the academic circle. At the beginning of my career that meant publishing better papers to gain the reputation and develop ideas. Then, founding Portal Biotech allowed me to bring a more concrete contribution. This experience taught me that real impact requires evolving. I had to learn to recruit and trust people whose expertise was nothing like my own: engineers, business operators, regulatory specialists. And I had to translate scientific proof-of-concept into the kind of commercial risk that investors can underwrite. I learned to let go: to see ideas I had nurtured for fifteen years grow under the hands of others.

Most personally, I learned that to build a successful team requires both vision and execution. The most rewarding moments now are not single discoveries, but watching a team turning an idea into something the world can use.