Northeastern taught grad how to analyze cells. Now, it’s her business
Graduate Hannah Sheehan Sauve used a high-precision cell analysis technique she learned at Northeastern University to build a company.
Under the stars at Banff National Park in Canada, Hannah Sheehan Sauve looked for a sign.
She and her now-husband Jeff were contemplating whether starting a company together was the right step.
He had a career in sales and she was a scientist at a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical research and development company. Her job centered around a technique known as flow cytometry – designing experiments for researchers, analyzing data and running an instrument that uses lasers and liquid to study a range of drug influences on the smallest parts of a cell.
Sheehan Sauve knew the market needed a one-stop shop for these services.
Flow cytometers can be cost-prohibitive for burgeoning biotech and pharmaceutical startups that use this tool to validate the treatments they are developing. The device costs from $60,000 to $600,000 – and that doesn’t factor in the expense of having an in-house staff scientist to operate the tool and translate the results.
Then, while at the park’s Lake Louise in 2024, the couple saw the northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis. For Sheehan Sauve, that was the sign they needed to start SauveBio.
The company offers flow cytometry services and analysis to the drug discovery market. Sheehan Sauve serves as the company’s co-founder and CEO.
While other companies may offer startups access to the tool, they’re still left needing to design experiments and interpret results, she said.
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She first encountered the technique while earning her biology Ph.D. at Northeastern University.
“By having the technical skill set in-house and by making it less expensive to access for biotech companies, we feel that we’re speeding up the drug discovery process and making it less expensive to get patients, inevitably, the treatment that they need,” she told Northeastern Global News.
While at Northeastern, Sheehan Sauve used the technique to sort mitochondria in the lab headed by associate professor Dori Woods.
Woods recalls Sheehan Sauve as “detail oriented” and a “really creative problem solver” who was “very dedicated to her research.”
“She really fell in love with flow cytometry and I couldn’t really drag her away from the machine,” Woods said. “She understands those nuances of finding rare populations, working with organelles and doing these more advanced applications really puts her in a position where she is the absolute expert in flow cytometry.”
Sheehan Sauve knew she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, and in her undergraduate years came to understand that she didn’t need to be patient-facing to do so. Today, at SauveBio, some of her clients are working on developing treatments for cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
Operating out of a life sciences startup incubator in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 45 miles west of Boston, SauveBio acts like “an external extension of the research team” for any company needing its services, designing the research method and suggesting next steps.
Recently, Sheehan Sauve was named one of eight fellows of the 2026 Women Who Empower Innovator Awards, granted to students, alumni and associates of Northeastern who are pursuing ventures across AI, technology, health, arts and more.
“You never really feel ready. It’s all about surrounding yourself with people that support your dreams and believe in you before you necessarily believe in yourself,” Sheehan Sauve said. “The resources at Northeastern helped me to feel comfortable taking a leap and betting on myself, and I don’t regret it at all.”
