ABOUT
About Magellan Bioanalytics
Magellan Bioanalytics develops computational technologies for the analysis and interpretation of complex biological data.
The company’s work focuses on analytical approaches that preserve more of the information generated by modern experimental platforms and use relationships across large sample populations to identify biologically meaningful patterns.
COMPASS is Magellan’s proprietary computational framework for large-scale comparative analysis of mass spectrometry and complementary biological datasets.
Technology & Approach
Magellan develops analytical methods designed around the scale, dimensionality, and variability of modern biological data.
Rather than treating data processing and biological interpretation as separate problems, COMPASS provides a common computational framework for organizing measurements, comparing them across sample populations, and identifying relationships associated with biological differences.
The framework currently supports large-scale MS1 analysis and the integration of externally generated MS2 identities, with native MS2 analysis under development. It also provides a foundation for relating mass spectrometry measurements to complementary omics and biological information.
This approach allows complex datasets to be analyzed broadly while preserving the information needed for subsequent molecular and biological interpretation.
Research & IP
Magellan has developed and evaluated its computational methods using real biological datasets, including applications in treatment-response analysis, biomarker discovery, comparative population analysis, and machine-learning-based evaluation of large mass spectrometry datasets.
Examples of this work are described in Magellan’s studies and peer-reviewed research.
Magellan also maintains intellectual property protections around key elements of its computational architecture and analytical methodologies, including proprietary approaches for large-scale biological data analysis and comparative feature evaluation.
Founder Bios
Marc Hansen, PhD
Founder
Cell Biologist
Marc trained as a cell biologist, earning his PhD at Stanford University and completing his postdoctoral work at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. He joined the faculty at Brigham Young University in 2005, where he led a research group for 15 years that pursued biological questions using an unusually broad range of technical approaches — from live cell imaging and two-photon microscopy to chemical genetics and proteomics.
His chemical genetics research led him into biotech, where he founded a cancer drug discovery company that developed a novel therapeutic compound now entering clinical evaluation. His proteomics work pointed in a different direction: a graduate student who spent a few months collecting mass spectrometry data then spent several years trying to analyze it. That imbalance — extraordinary data generation, inadequate tools to process it — became the founding problem Magellan was built to solve.
Marc deepened his understanding of large-scale biological data analysis during a 2012–13 sabbatical at the Systems Biology Group at Imperial College London. He is a co-author on the peer-reviewed publication demonstrating COMPASS's ability to classify breast cancer patients by disease stage using full-spectrum serum analysis (Cancers, 2024), and has led the application of COMPASS in clinical trial settings, including the blinded treatment-response study described in Magellan's white paper.
His broader experience includes drug discovery from concept through IND readiness, FDA approval for clinical studies, patent prosecution across multiple international jurisdictions, capital raising, technology licensing, and company leadership at the C and VP level.
Marc can be reached directly at mhansen@mag-bio.com.
Dan Olsen, PhD
Founder
Computer Scientist
Dan is a computer scientist with faculty appointments at Brigham Young University, Arizona State University, and Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught and conducted research at the intersection of large-scale data analysis, computer graphics, and human-computer interaction.
Marc and Dan began working together in 2013 through a technology innovation program that brought STEM researchers together with computer science talent. Recognizing that the mass spectrometry data problem was fundamentally a computational challenge — one requiring a rethinking of how software handles data at scale — Dan joined forces with Marc to build the tools that became COMPASS.
As CTO, Dan oversees all technology development and strategy at Magellan. His work is central to COMPASS's ability to process and compare extremely large molecular datasets across entire study cohorts while preserving a broad representation of the underlying measurement space.
He holds a B.S. from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, has published extensively in computer graphics and human-computer interaction, and has held leadership roles in SIGGRAPH and the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. He is also recognized as a software intellectual property expert and consultant to software-focused venture capital firms.
Dan can be reached directly at olsen@mag-bio.com.