Mauro Muraro is the CEO and Co-Founder of Single Cell Discoveries (SCD), the world's first dedicated commercial single-cell sequencing CRO.

Mauro trained as a systems biologist at the University of Amsterdam and spent time at Mount Sinai in New York before completing his PhD at the Hubrecht Institute in the lab of Professor Alexander van Oudenaarden. His doctoral work focused on developing single-cell sequencing methods — and after thousands of hours running manual protocols, he built SORT-seq, an automated approach that made the technology dramatically more accessible. The resulting surge in demand from researchers across the institute planted the seed for something bigger.

Rather than staying in academia, Mauro teamed up with co-founder Judith to spin out SCD as an independent company — turning a core facility into a fully commercial CRO. Over four years of organic growth, SCD scaled into the leading European provider of tailor-made single-cell, bulk, and spatial transcriptomics services for both academic and biopharma clients. The company subsequently took on private equity backing to accelerate its expansion into global biopharma and invest in data science and R&D.

Today, Mauro leads SCD's commercial strategy, business development, and investor relations. Drawing on his scientific background in single-cell biology, he spends significant time at the intersection of client and partner needs and SCD's data science and R&D roadmap — working with the team to translate what the market is asking for today into what SCD will offer in the years ahead.

Service-based business models play a key role in supporting innovation across the life sciences. Business Model in Practice: Service Model explores how service companies, like Single Cell Discoveries, operate and create value for their clients. The session will cover essential components of the service model, including client engagement, project customization, pricing strategies, and ensuring quality and reproducibility at scale. Using Single Cell Discoveries’ expertise in single-cell sequencing services as a case study, the discussion will highlight practical approaches for building and sustaining a successful service organization in a dynamic scientific environment.