Meet the Team

Igor Balaž is founder and CEO of Neovivum Technologies and Professor of Biophysics at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. He holds a BSc in Biology, a Master's degree in Microbiology, and a PhD in Physics of Complex Systems, which he obtained in 2011 at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. During his doctoral studies, he made a deliberate choice to train himself in formal mathematical rigor. He wanted to develop the conceptual tools needed to understand living systems as dynamical processes and to grasp how their functional properties could evolve and adapt. This interdisciplinary foundation has shaped his entire career: bridging biology, physics, and computational science to develop adaptive intelligence systems that learn and evolve.

Throughout his academic career, Igor has consistently explored how evolutionary principles can be harnessed to design intelligent systems. He has coordinated Horizon 2020 projects EVO-NANO (2018–2022, €3M) and PACE (2020–2022, €100K) and Horizon Europe project BioMeld (2022–2026, €4.5M).

In 2023, Igor secured an Office of Naval Research grant to develop "Bio-synthetic lifeforms: a framework for generating evolvable, digital metacognitive agents." This foundational research crystallized his long-standing vision: that the same evolutionary principles governing biological adaptation could be applied to artificial systems capable of self-improvement and metacognitive reasoning. Rather than continuing as a purely academic endeavor, he founded Neovivum Technologies in 2023 to translate this vision into clinical and commercial applications. The next year, he ideated, wrote, and secured the EU Horizon Europe EIC Pathfinder project CancerScan (€3M), which develops digital twins to predict therapy resistance in pancreatic cancer. He also participates in the ABIGAIL4D consortium, advancing longitudinal breast cancer predictions through similar evolutionary intelligence frameworks.

His intellectual formation was enriched by extended research visits to the Laboratory for Nonlinear Dynamics and Theoretical Biology at Kobe University, Japan, under the mentorship of Professor Yukio-Pegio Gunji, a pioneer in computational models of living systems. These collaborations deepened his conviction that understanding life requires bridging physics, information theory, and biology, a perspective reflected in his publications and research agenda. In 2026, CancerScan advanced in the EMA Breakthrough Medical Device designation pathway, validating the regulatory viability of his approach to patient-specific digital twins.

Today, Igor pursues a dual career that reflects his philosophy: maintaining an academic position to ensure rigor and freedom of inquiry, while leading Neovivum to ensure ideas translate into clinical impact. His work is driven by a conviction that understanding biological adaptability and designing computational systems that evolve are two expressions of a unified challenge. Whether through organoid experiments or single-cell transcriptomics, his goal remains constant: to extract principles of adaptation from natural systems and apply those principles to create artificial systems that become increasingly intelligent and capable over time. Precision medicine and evolvable metacognitive systems are not separate domains but complementary expressions of this vision.