Nicole Bell: CEO, Author, and Advocate for Diagnostic Clarity
Nicole Bell brings over two decades of experience across engineering, diagnostics, and advocacy. Today, she leads Galaxy Diagnostics: detection should reflect how infections behave, not just how tests are designed.
Summary
- CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics, a diagnostics company focused on stealth pathogens ( Bartonella, Borrelia, Babesia)
- Bestselling author of What Lurks in the Woods, a memoir on undiagnosed tick-borne infection
- MIT + Duke trained engineer with 25+ years in medical device and diagnostics leadership
- Available for podcasts, panels, and keynotes on diagnostics, tick-borne disease, and scientific entrepreneurship
Credentials at a Glance
CEO, Galaxy Diagnostics
Leading the company’s scientific and commercial direction.
MIT + Duke Trained
BS & MS, Materials Science (MIT). MS, Biomedical Engineering (Duke).
Diagnostics Industry Leader
25+ years across engineering, product development, and diagnostics.
Bestselling Author
Author of What Lurks in the Woods, a bestselling memoir on undiagnosed tick-borne infection.
Keynote & Podcast Guest
CATALYZE 2026 keynote. Project Lyme Stories That Heal. Alzheimer’s Pathobiome Initiative for the Center for Lyme Action.
Nicole Bell Is Closing The Diagnostic Gap
A personal experience. A scientific pursuit. A company built to close the gap between them.
THE MOMENT
Nicole Bell’s path to diagnostics began at home, when her family’s tick-borne infection went undiagnosed.
THE PROBLEM
Stealth pathogens circulate in low concentrations and appear unpredictably. Standard testing wasn’t designed for that.
THE EXPERTISE
MIT + Duke engineer. 25+ years leading Advanced Liquid Logic (now part of Illumina) and TransEnterix (now part of Karl Storz).
THE MISSION
Today, she leads Galaxy Diagnostics: detection built for how infections actually behave.
SELECTED WORK & RECOGNITION
- What Lurks in the Woods
Bestselling memoir on her family’s experience with tick-borne infection. - The State of Lyme Disease Research in the United States
Primary author. Center for Lyme Action. - Alzheimer’s Pathobiome Initiative
for the Center for Lyme Action - CATALYZE 2026 Keynote Speaker
NC State, March 2026. Diagnostics and FDA submissions. - ACA Summit 2026, Innovation Funders Showcase
Representing innovation in stealth pathogen diagnostics. - Project Lyme “Stories That Heal”
Featured author, NYC, April 2026.
“Detection should reflect how pathogens behave in the body, not just how tests were traditionally designed.”
– Nicole Bell, CEO, Galaxy Diagnostics
What Nicole Bell Can Speak On
Conversations about diagnostic uncertainty, complex infections, and the people searching for answers.
How Standard Testing Falls Short in Complex Tick-Borne Disease
Building a Diagnostics Company with Scientific Integrity
The Patient Experience Behind Diagnostic Uncertainty
Why Galaxy Diagnostics exists
A personal experience. A scientific pursuit. A company built to close the gap between them.
WHAT GALAXY DOES
Galaxy Diagnostics provides advanced testing for stealth pathogens like Bartonella, Borrelia, and Babesia. The portfolio combines digital PCR, urine antigen testing, and Bartonella serology.
WHY IT EXISTS
Standard testing often misses these pathogens. Galaxy closes that gap with methods grounded in peer-reviewed science and transparent methodology.
HOW IT’S DIFFERENT
Galaxy extends what’s possible when clinical suspicion remains high. Detection is designed around how stealth pathogens behave in the body.
Key behaviors detection must account for:
Low abundance in blood:
Pathogens may be present in concentrations below what routine tests detect.
Migration into tissues:
Many stealth pathogens leave circulation and hide in tissue reservoirs.
Cyclical circulation:
Presence in the bloodstream can be intermittent, making single draws unreliable.
Variable immune response:
Antibody-based tests miss cases where the immune response is delayed, muted, or atypical.
Answering Your FAQ's
A personal experience. A scientific pursuit. A company built to close the gap between them.
Who is Nicole Bell?
Nicole Bell is the CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics and the bestselling author of What Lurks in the Woods. With a background in materials science and biomedical engineering from MIT and Duke, she spent more than two decades in medical device and diagnostics leadership before founding Galaxy. Her work sits at the intersection of rigorous science, complex infectious disease, and patient advocacy.
Who is Galaxy Diagnostics? What do they do?
Galaxy Diagnostics is a specialty diagnostics company focused on stealth pathogens — infections like Bartonella, Borrelia, and Babesia that are notoriously difficult to detect using standard testing. Galaxy’s approach combines digital PCR, urine antigen testing, and the broadest Bartonella serology panel available, all grounded in peer-reviewed science.
Why is tick-borne disease so hard to diagnose?
It’s Nicole Bell’s firsthand account of her husband’s misdiagnosis with early-onset Alzheimer’s, which was later discovered to be a tick-borne infection. The book documents their family’s experience navigating a medical system that couldn’t explain what was happening. It became a bestselling, award-winning memoir and is widely read by patients, caregivers, and clinicians dealing with complex chronic illness.
How can I book Nicole Bell as a podcast guest or speaker?
Podcasts, panels, founder conversations, and industry events focused on diagnostics innovation, complex infectious disease, women in leadership, scientific entrepreneurship, and the real-world gap between symptoms, testing, and clinical certainty.