Joel Ehrenkranz's Biography

Joel Ehrenkranz, Chief Medical Officer, i-calQ

Dr. Ehrenkranz is an academic endocrinologist and successful biotech entrepreneur. A graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine, he has over 30 years experience in both clinical medicine and diagnostics development. His inventions include drug testing technologies, home pregnancy tests, and thyroid diagnostics. He worked for the Commissioner of the U.S. F.D.A. from 1991 to 1996. He is the director of diabetes and endocrinology for Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, Utah and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. While doctoring in a 2007 Ebola epidemic in Uganda, Dr. Ehrenkranz invented smartphone-based point-of-care diagnostics. In 2011, he founded a company, i-calQ L.L.C. to commercialize this invention. i-calQ developed the world’s first smartphone point-of-care diagnostic device and is the leader in the field of smartphone-based point-of-care diagnostics. I-calQ was a finalist in the Nokia Sensing X Prize Challenge, has received funding from Grand Challenges Canada for smartphone-based renal function testing in rural Tanzania, and is an invitee for a Wellcome Trust project to set up newborn thyroid screening in India. Dr. Ehrenkranz and i-calQ are currently working with the Thailand Ministry of Public Health to replace centralized newborn screening and iodine nutrition monitoring with smartphone-based point-of-care thyroid disease management.