Benjamin Casavant: 2024 Early Career Award recipient

PhDBME ’13 (BS ’09, University of California, Berkeley)
CEO, Tasso

A biomedical engineer and healthcare entrepreneur whose patient-centric blood-collection technologies are transforming the traditional approach.

While collaborating with an oncologist for his dissertation project, Ben Casavant identified one patient who might benefit from a revised treatment plan. The only catch? The man, who lived in rural Wisconsin, would first need to drive multiple hours to a clinic for some bloodwork. He opted to wait until his next scheduled appointment.

“Patient No. 45; I’ll never forget that,” he says. “He didn’t make it to that next appointment.”

Stories like that are essentially the inspiration behind Tasso, the company Casavant and fellow alum Erwin Berthier have spent the past 12 years building based on work they began as PhD students in the lab of Professor David Beebe.

Tasso, which is Italian for badger, has created a platform that allows for painless, at-home blood draws. The Seattle-based company’s technology is currently used to gather data in support of clinical trials for new drugs, in research studies, and in drug testing for Major League Baseball and the Olympics. Casavant says the company’s roadmap includes at-home testing for chronic disease management in the near future.

“What I would love to see is that you go to your doctor and they say, ‘You can do the blood draw or we can just send you a Tasso,’” he says. “I think that’s the future. I think we’re looking to become a standard way that people can get critical health and diagnostic information. And I think one step further than that is stitching together that patient information and looking at it over time. I think you can start using that data to make better predictions, to help make better interventions a little bit earlier.”

Which engineering professor made the greatest impact on you?

As you go through life, you figure out that whoever is your boss tends to have a lot of impact on your own success and how you feel about a place and your role. The two things I can say about Dave (Beebe) that were amazing are: No. 1, he took a chance. I was not coming in with the greatest of resumes. It was him giving me a chance, and No. 2, giving me the space to be creative, try new things and to somewhat fail and have my back. It’s all of that that really created this wonderful environment and this amazing ability for me to craft that into my PhD and set myself up for the future in a really positive way.

What do you enjoy about your career?

I love working with people. I love being able to build something amazing while working with all these incredibly talented people who believe so strongly in our mission. I also love the ability to feel like I’m disrupting something and making a change that has a huge impact that has never been done before. I love the challenge. I love seeing it happen.

Which do you prefer?

Winter or summer in Madison?
Dude, does anyone say winter?

Fun on the Terrace or fun on Lake Mendota?
Terrace. I love sailing, I was part of the Hoofers sailing club, so that’s a tough one. But the Terrace is just a special place.

Camp Randall, the Kohl Center, or the UW Field House?
The only saving grace of winter was hockey, so I’ve got to say the Kohl Center.

Sweet Caroline or Jump Around?
Sweet Caroline, definitely.

Orange custard chocolate chip, or something else?
Orange custard chocolate chip, for sure. I try to find that at every single ice cream shop I go to, and nobody does it as good as Babcock. I’m on an eternal journey. Everywhere I go, I get it, and I’m disappointed.