Finding the Right Chemistry to Make a Difference

At Selux Diagnostics, Adam Steel (Ph.D. ’96, chemistry) takes disease-fighting medical technology from the lab to the market.

With his work on disease-fighting technology, Adam Steel (Ph.D. ’96, chemistry) found the right chemistry for a rewarding career. For more than three decades, Steel has applied his analytical chemistry skill set in the medical technology industry, developing next-generation products to improve patient care. 

“What I've learned over my career and became most proud of is being part of an overall group and a team that's identifying and tackling hard problems impacting human health,” Steel said.

From his 17 years in research, product development and management at Becton Dickinson (BD) to his current role as chief implementation officer at Selux Diagnostics, Steel has taken breakthrough diagnostic products from the lab to the marketplace. For Steel, it’s part of a lifelong mission to do good scientific work that makes a difference.

“Knowing that I was doing something that's contributing to society was a driver for me from early on,” Steel said. “It was always about knowing that the end product of what I'm working on is going to be a direct net positive—helping people have healthy lives.”

Family chemistry

Steel wasn’t the first one in his family to study chemistry. His father was trained as a chemist, then went on to a career in public service; his mother studied chemistry before shifting her career toward education. Growing up on the family farm in western Pennsylvania, Steel and his two brothers followed a similar path, earning undergraduate degrees in chemistry from Gettysburg College. And both Adam and his younger brother Bill earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Maryland. For Adam, UMD was where his career goals came into focus.

“I thought coming out of my undergraduate degree that I wanted to get my Ph.D. and become a professor and teach and do research,” Steel recalled. “Then as I worked on my Ph.D., that kind of morphed, and I realized I might be more interested in doing something applied and then going to industry.”

Soon after Steel began his doctoral work at Maryland, he connected with Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Professor Janice Reutt-Robey and began focusing on surface science.

“We were very focused on looking at single molecule layer thick films on solid surfaces and what their behaviors were,” Steel recalled. “We were generally looking at biological applications, getting new insights around that very thin layer at interfaces and thinking about how cell membranes operate.”

From his work in the lab to his research collaborations at UMD, Steel continued to build a strong foundation in analytical chemistry, enjoying the challenges of problem-solving.

“In the department, we would have happy hours on Friday afternoons—open sessions where you'd sit with professors and talk about science and have a chance to really think about really odd science ideas and technology in a very casual atmosphere,” he recalled. “I remember really enjoying that, just thinking about problems in a way that was more open-ended and fun.”

From research to recognition

After earning his Ph.D. in 1996, Steel went on to do postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

“We were using thin films and putting small strands of DNA on the surface of electrodes and then finding ways to actually measure the binding properties, which was a precursor to what I ended up doing in industry later in my career,” Steel explained. “We produced a paper that came out of that research that was in the top 20 cited for the decade that followed. Producing a peer reviewed article that was so widely recognized by others in the field, it meant a lot.”

From NIST, Steel joined a biotechnology startup Gene Logic for a job that eventually led to a research and development opportunity at MetriGenix, a small company that was developing a DNA microarray for drug discovery. It was Steel’s first real exposure to product development

“That opportunity got me thinking more about leadership and management perspectives and thinking through strategically about how we go through the overall process and get a product to market,” Steel said. “And the notion of how that happens was completely new to me, so it was a new way to learn and apply the science in the background.”

In 2005, with a growing interest in seeing things from a big company perspective, Steel joined BD, taking on various roles from staff scientist to manager in the years that followed.

“I went back to the bench to start, but then within a year, I moved into a management role and slowly progressed from that to vice president for the research and development arm of the diagnostics business for BD,” Steel explained. “We were working primarily in infectious disease diagnostics and treatment.”

At BD, finding solutions to challenging health care problems was an essential part of the job, especially during COVID.

“During the pandemic, BD had a great team that was able to make products that were helping to diagnose and detect COVID in fast and very sensitive ways,” Steel recalled. “It was a really exciting time because everybody was kind of learning all at the same time and trying to innovate, developing products at a speed that hadn’t really been accomplished before—it was really rewarding.” 

Steel’s extensive experience at BD helped set the stage for his move to Selux Diagnostics in 2023. There, Steel focuses on advancing the company’s disease-fighting products from the lab to the market.

“In my experience with BD, I had seen so many products cross that chasm from being developed to getting into the market,” he said. “I joined Selux to help them make that leap from having products that are technologically very sound to now being able to exist in the marketplace.”

For Steel, one of Selux Diagnostics’ most exciting technologies is a rapid-response antimicrobial resistance test designed to speed up the diagnosis of superbugs and other dangerous bacterial infections and identify the best therapeutics to treat them.

“There are patients that are really sick, they have an infection, and their health care team is trying to figure out how to give them the best care. Historically, the diagnostic products that have existed were not fast enough. If we’d had a diagnosis earlier, we could have made a difference,” he said. “The really exciting part about the Selux technology is it provides rapid results—you can start to impact and improve patient care in a way that just hasn't been possible to this point.”

A different kind of chemistry

Away from his work with disease-fighting technology, Steel finds time to dabble in a very different kind of chemistry, mixing up his own unique formulas on the 12-acre Maryland farm that he and his family call home.

“We have a hobby farm in Jarrettsville, Maryland, and I enjoy making a lot of my own hot sauces. We also have bees, so I’ve been making mead as well,” Steel explained. “Growing up on a farm and having that in my background, it just feels right.”

And after more than 20 years, Steel’s work in the medical technology space still feels right as well. He hopes he can continue advancing disease-fighting technology—and making a positive impact on patient care—for many years to come. 

“I want to be on the cutting edge, not just from a pure science perspective, but also from an application of science and a medical perspective. My application space happens to be in health care, and I want to make sure my contributions enable those that provide care to have the best tools available,” Steel said. “When you hear how products that you've worked on have had an impact, how they’ve helped people who got sick, it makes it all worthwhile.”