Fred Milanovich

Fred Milanovich is co-founder and former Founding CEO and chairman of QuantaLife, Inc., a biotechnology company that developed digital droplet PCR technology, and spent the bulk of his research career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Milanovich earned his undergraduate degree from the United States Air Force Academy before completing his Ph.D. in applied physics at the University of California, Davis/Livermore in 1971. His dissertation examined the physical and chemical properties of naturally occurring dissolved organic substances in freshwater—early environmental science work that used spectroscopic methods to characterize humic materials. He subsequently joined Lawrence Livermore, where he led efforts in biological agent detection, biosensor development, and environmental monitoring for national security applications. In the 2000s Milanovich co-founded QuantaLife, which commercialized digital droplet PCR (ddPCR)—a highly sensitive method for absolute nucleic acid quantification that has become a standard tool in molecular diagnostics, oncology research, and pathogen detection. Bio-Rad Laboratories acquired QuantaLife in 2011.