About Klaudia Szklarczyk-Smolana
A Neuroscientist Who Spent a Decade Decoding How Genes Shape the Way We Respond to Stress — Now Building the Software That Turns Raw Genomic Data Into Diagnoses Clinicians Can Act On.
Klaudia is the CEO and Co‑Founder of Intelliseq, a bioinformatics company that turns raw DNA sequencing data into diagnostic reports doctors and patients can use. She has led the company since co‑founding it in 2014, partway through a PhD spent tracing the genetics of stress‑coping and fear response.
From the Amygdala to the Diagnostics Lab
Klaudia Szklarczyk-Smolana started her career studying the biology of fear. Across a decade of research at the Institute of Pharmacology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Applied Psychology at Jagiellonian University, her work asked a specific question: why do genetically similar individuals cope with trauma so differently, and which genes explain the gap?
That research — tracing stress‑responsive genes through the amygdala and hippocampus of inbred mouse strains — produced nine peer‑reviewed papers and a habit of thinking in genotypes and phenotypes. Her doctoral and research work was carried out at the Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences, with additional research stays at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the University of Zürich.
Scientist to Founder
In 2014, partway through her doctorate, Klaudia co‑founded Intelliseq with three colleagues from the same lab — Marcin Piechota, Michał Korostyński and Sławomir Gołda — spinning bioinformatics methods from their Academy of Sciences research into a genetic‑diagnostics company. She completed her PhD in Medical Sciences in 2016 while building Intelliseq’s early product line, and along the way was a FameLab finalist, a member of the Science Advocates Association, and a Minister of Science Scholarship recipient for outstanding academic achievement.
She has led Intelliseq as CEO ever since — through its first Silicon Valley partnerships, an MIT Enterprise Forum acceleration, the 2021 launch of its flagship iFlow platform, and a 2025 funding round backing its expansion into the U.S. market. Learn more on the Company page.
Building Intelliseq
Klaudia’s scientific grounding in the genetics of stress and fear shapes how she leads Intelliseq today: a company built on the same rigor she brought to a decade of neuroscience research, now applied to making genomic diagnostics accessible and actionable for clinical labs and patients. See her published research on the Publications page.