Nicole Wagner, Ph.D.Founder

United States - Woodbridge, Connecticut

Nicole Wagner, Ph.D., is the co-founder, president, and CEO of LambdaVision, a biotechnology company she spun out of her graduate research to translate intellectual property into a commercial enterprise. LambdaVision is pioneering space-based biomanufacturing to develop a protein-based artificial retina designed to restore meaningful vision to patients blinded by retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. Under Dr. Wagner’s leadership, LambdaVision has secured >$22M in funding from government agencies, investors, and strategic partners to accelerate research, development, and commercialization. Her work has been featured in Bloomberg, Chemical & Engineering News, Space News, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, BBC News, Harvard Business Review, and MIT Technology Review.
Through LambdaVision, Dr. Wagner is advancing a therapy to restore sight on Earth while establishing new opportunities for biomanufacturing and life sciences innovation in low-Earth orbit. The company has completed nine missions to the International Space Station (ISS) to advance its layer-by-layer manufacturing process for artificial retinas in microgravity, demonstrating that space offers an ideal platform for producing high-quality, homogenous, and scalable thin-film biotherapeutics.
Dr. Wagner earned her Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from the University of Connecticut in 2013. Her graduate work focused on optimizing light-activated proteins for device applications, where she played a critical role in the proof-of-concept experiments that led to LambdaVision’s founding. Her accolades include the Connecticut Technology Council’s Women of Innovation Award, Connecticut Magazine’s 40 Under 40, the 2020 Women in Aerospace Achievement Award, the 2021 BioCT Rising Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Healthcare Technology Report’s Top 25 Women Leaders in Biotechnology for 2021, Hartford Business Journal’s Power 50 for 2022, the 2023 NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal, and the 2024 Petit Family Foundation Women in Leadership Award. Dr. Wagner serves on the Boards of the New England Women in Science Executives’ Club, the Connecticut Technology Council, and the American Society for Gravitation and Space Research, and chairs the Applied R&D Subcommittee of the ISS National Lab User Advisory Committee.