Applied science invention lab · Oakville, Ontario
Wren Labs is an applied science and engineering laboratory in Oakville, Ontario developing biotechnology, molecular diagnostics, scientific instruments, laboratory automation, AI, robotics, electronics and advanced manufacturing systems.
We don't separate research from engineering. We don't separate engineering from manufacturing.
We would rather show the shape of the place than describe it. Every figure below is the company's own count, and every one of them is meant to be checked.
01 / Built differently
The problems we work on rarely belong to one field. They move between fields — and at Wren the person who can take the next step works in the same building.
If the solution exists in a catalogue, we're probably not the right lab. If it requires inventing something new, we might be.
02 / The development stack
We can work across the complete development stack, from the scientific question to the manufactured system, without the problem leaving the building.
That breadth is deliberate. We think difficult physical technologies are developed faster when the people who understand the molecule, the signal, the electronics and the machine can solve the problem together.
03 / Science
We aren't interested in science that exists separately from the system that uses it. Our scientists work beside physicists, electronics designers, mechanical engineers and software developers.
sample → prep → extraction → amplification → detection → interpretation
We are expanding our ability to create the molecules behind our technologies.
Different targets demand different strategies, so we work across several.
How do you make a machine recognize something it has never been able to recognize before?
Sometimes the critical invention isn't the sensor. It's the material touching the sample, or the reagent that has to survive outside an ideal laboratory.
Our physicists work where the signal meets reality.
We hire physicists because difficult engineering problems often get easier when someone reduces them back to first principles.
Sometimes we need to invent the chemistry that makes the measurement possible.
04 / Engineering
Wren develops physical systems that combine mechanics, electronics, fluidics, sensing, firmware and software. Our engineers don't operate downstream of science. They work beside it.
Our engineers don't stop when the CAD is finished. They build it.
We build the nervous systems of machines.
We don't buy a development board and call it hardware engineering.
The objective isn't simply to make hardware operate. It's to build reusable technical architectures many instruments can grow from.
We are most at home building machines that:
05 / AI + software
Software isn't an interface sitting on top of our machines. It is part of the machine. Our architecture spans device control, firmware, communications, cloud systems, bioinformatics and experimental data.
The scientist remains responsible for scientific judgment. The machine removes the repetitive intellectual and experimental work around them.
Our ambition is not to put AI inside a product. We want AI to change how quickly physical technology can be invented — a cross-cutting tool, not the thing we are.
06 / Test + validation
A prototype working once proves surprisingly little. We want to know when it stops working, why, whether we can reproduce the failure and whether we can eliminate it.
Instead of reducing validation to PASS / FAIL, we want to understand where it works, where performance degrades, where it fails and which variable caused the failure. That feeds directly back into the science and the engineering.
Build → break → understand → rebuild.
07 / Build
The machine shop is part of the laboratory. Iteration slows dramatically when every physical change becomes a purchase order, so we're building fabrication capability inside R&D rather than at arm's length from it.
The goal isn't cheaper parts. It's faster learning: change a part today, test the next revision tomorrow.
08 / This is Wren
Six laboratories — chemistry, molecular biology, electronics, the machine shop, instrument development and test — so a sample, a board or a part can move between them without leaving the organization.
Synthetic chemistry · formulation · peptide chemistry · materials
PCR · qPCR · extraction · sequencing · assay development
PCB development · embedded systems · sensors · instrumentation
CNC · CAD/CAM · rapid fabrication · fixtures · prototyping
Fluidics · robotics · thermal control · automation
Reliability · accelerated-life testing · automated validation
09 / Projects
We don't publish customers or programme details. These are the kinds of systems we work on — technologies meant to move sophisticated analytical capability out of centralized laboratories and closer to where decisions get made.
Automated systems combining sample handling, nucleic-acid preparation, amplification, detection and software interpretation.
Systems designed to reduce the manual workflow between sample, nucleic acid, sequencing and identification.
Technologies for understanding complex environmental samples, including water and wastewater.
New approaches to detecting targets that conventional nucleic-acid methods cannot directly measure.
Ruggedized technologies intended to perform sophisticated sample preparation and measurement outside a conventional laboratory.
Machines that replace repetitive manual laboratory workflows with controlled, reproducible automation.
Different problems. Shared technology. Every project should make the next one easier.
10 / People
We don't put names and headshots on this page. What matters to the work is which capabilities are in the room, so that's what we list.
Aerospace engineering, scientific simulation, additive manufacturing, design optimization and complex systems.
10+ years of assay development, sample-to-answer diagnostics, qPCR, LAMP and other isothermal methods, lyophilization and analytical validation.
15+ years across polymer synthesis, functional materials, composites and scale-up.
Multistep organic synthesis, peptide synthesis, noncanonical amino acids, HPLC, LC-MS, HRMS and NMR.
Machine learning, device control, firmware, bioinformatics and distributed systems, from embedded C to the data model.
Mixed-signal design, low-noise detection, PCB development, power electronics and controls, with 10+ years in embedded systems.
Astrophysics, spectroscopy, experimental instrumentation, signal processing, statistical modeling and scientific Python.
CAD/CAM, CNC, injection molding, laser fabrication, 3D printing, precision assembly and production engineering.
11 / Ambition
We're asking a bigger question: what happens if you put an unusually broad group of scientists and engineers together, give them AI tools, rapid fabrication and the freedom to cross disciplines, and optimize the whole organization for iteration speed? We want to compress the cycle.
Idea → experiment
from weeks to daysExperiment → prototype
from months to weeksPrototype → manufacturable system
from years to monthsWe want Wren to become a place where a difficult scientific question enters one side of the building and a working physical system emerges from the other.
12 / Careers
We're looking for scientists, engineers and builders who are unusually curious. People who want responsibility before they're completely ready for it. People who would rather learn a new field than say "that's not my job."
Your degree is a starting point. Not a boundary.
That's okay. There are excellent organizations built that way. We aren't one of them.
We deliberately hire exceptional people early in their careers. You may work beside PhD scientists, senior engineers and experienced builders while holding responsibility for a real technical problem. Physics graduates model systems, analyze sensors and build test rigs. Chemists synthesize and characterize, then walk across the laboratory to see how that chemistry behaves inside an actual instrument. Biologists run assays and automate them. Engineers design parts, write firmware, machine prototypes, break them and make the next version better.
We don't expect you to know everything. We expect you to be capable of learning what you don't. That's different.
Tell us what you've built. Email hello@wrenlabs.com.
13 / Work with us
We're most useful when the answer needs some combination of biology, chemistry, materials, physics, electronics, automation, software, AI and manufacturing. We can engage at different points:
Tell us the problem, not the solution you think you're supposed to buy. What we want to understand: