AbCellera is a Vancouver-based biotech that played a crucial part during the Covid pandemic in identifying potential new drug therapies for the healthcare industry. They had developed a bespoke data-analysis tool in-house for visualising huge spreadsheets of antibody data. They needed guidance on turning a developer-built tool into a usable, scalable customer-facing product for their scientists.

As sole product designer, I ran the customer research, defined the new app architecture, the visual design of the interface, and prototypes of new features as the platforms functionality grew.

With as complex a topic as antibody-based drug discovery, it was crucial I immersed myself in this world of biology & technology. Team workshops immersed me in the science. From there I ran observational research studies with the scientists to understand how they used the tool.

I delivered them a revamped framework for the whole app that provided a foundation for scaling the system. From there we focused on desiging user-focussed iterations of the tool, which helped grow the business towards it’s billion-dollar IPO valuation during the COVID pandemic.