Nicole Bell brings over two decades of experience across engineering, diagnostics, and advocacy. Today, she leads Galaxy Diagnostics: detection should reflect how infections behave, not just how tests are designed.
Leading the company’s scientific and commercial direction.
BS & MS, Materials Science (MIT). MS, Biomedical Engineering (Duke).
25+ years across engineering, product development, and diagnostics.
Author of What Lurks in the Woods, a bestselling memoir on undiagnosed tick-borne infection.
CATALYZE 2026 keynote. Project Lyme Stories That Heal. Alzheimer’s Pathobiome Initiative for the Center for Lyme Action.
A personal experience. A scientific pursuit. A company built to close the gap between them.
Nicole Bell’s path to diagnostics began at home, when her family’s tick-borne infection went undiagnosed.
Stealth pathogens circulate in low concentrations and appear unpredictably. Standard testing wasn’t designed for that.
MIT + Duke engineer. 25+ years leading Advanced Liquid Logic (now part of Illumina) and TransEnterix (now part of Karl Storz).
Today, she leads Galaxy Diagnostics: detection built for how infections actually behave.
“Detection should reflect how pathogens behave in the body, not just how tests were traditionally designed.”
– Nicole Bell, CEO, Galaxy Diagnostics
What Nicole Bell Can Speak On
Conversations about diagnostic uncertainty, complex infections, and the people searching for answers.
How Standard Testing Falls Short in Complex Tick-Borne Disease
Building a Diagnostics Company with Scientific Integrity
The Patient Experience Behind Diagnostic Uncertainty
Recently Recorded
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Podcast hosts, panel moderators, and event organizers: share your outlet, topic of interest, and date window.
Why Galaxy Diagnostics exists
A personal experience. A scientific pursuit. A company built to close the gap between them.
WHAT GALAXY DOES
Galaxy Diagnostics provides advanced testing for stealth pathogens like Bartonella, Borrelia, and Babesia. The portfolio combines digital PCR, urine antigen testing, and Bartonella serology.
WHY IT EXISTS
Standard testing often misses these pathogens. Galaxy closes that gap with methods grounded in peer-reviewed science and transparent methodology.
HOW IT’S DIFFERENT
Galaxy extends what’s possible when clinical suspicion remains high. Detection is designed around how stealth pathogens behave in the body.
Key behaviors detection must account for:
Low abundance in blood:
Pathogens may be present in concentrations below what routine tests detect.
Migration into tissues:
Many stealth pathogens leave circulation and hide in tissue reservoirs.
Cyclical circulation:
Presence in the bloodstream can be intermittent, making single draws unreliable.
Variable immune response:
Antibody-based tests miss cases where the immune response is delayed, muted, or atypical.
A personal experience. A scientific pursuit. A company built to close the gap between them.
Nicole Bell is the CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics and the bestselling author of What Lurks in the Woods. With a background in materials science and biomedical engineering from MIT and Duke, she spent more than two decades in medical device and diagnostics leadership before founding Galaxy. Her work sits at the intersection of rigorous science, complex infectious disease, and patient advocacy.
Galaxy Diagnostics is a specialty diagnostics company focused on stealth pathogens — infections like Bartonella, Borrelia, and Babesia that are notoriously difficult to detect using standard testing. Galaxy’s approach combines digital PCR, urine antigen testing, and the broadest Bartonella serology panel available, all grounded in peer-reviewed science.
Stealth pathogens behave differently than other infections. They circulate in low concentrations, migrate into tissues, appear intermittently in the bloodstream, and often produce a muted or delayed immune response. Standard tests weren’t designed for that biology, which is why patients and providers frequently find themselves with symptoms that don’t match the results.
It’s Nicole Bell’s firsthand account of her husband’s misdiagnosis with early-onset Alzheimer’s, which was later discovered to be a tick-borne infection. The book documents their family’s experience navigating a medical system that couldn’t explain what was happening. It became a bestselling, award-winning memoir and is widely read by patients, caregivers, and clinicians dealing with complex chronic illness.
Nicole is available for podcasts, panels, keynotes, and founder conversations. Her topics include diagnostic uncertainty in complex cases, the biology of stealth pathogens, building a diagnostics company with scientific integrity, and women leading in life sciences. Use the booking link in the Speaking section above to share your outlet, topic of interest, and date window.
Podcasts, panels, founder conversations, and industry events focused on diagnostics innovation, complex infectious disease, women in leadership, scientific entrepreneurship, and the real-world gap between symptoms, testing, and clinical certainty.
That depends on why you’re here. Providers: Galaxy’s clinical resources. Investors and industry contacts: the Galaxy story and company positioning. Podcast hosts and event organizers: the booking pathway in Section 4. General visitors: continue exploring Nicole’s media appearances and Galaxy’s broader mission.
