Who We Are

21 Grams Assays, Inc was formed in 2021 in Ann Arbor, Michigan by Russell Hart and Barbara Scheuer who collectively have years of experience in designing, manufacturing, analyzing and shipping FDA-regulated life science and clinical products worldwide.

Russ and Barb have worked at Abbott Labs Diagnostics Division, Kallestad Diagnostics, Sanofi Diagnostics, R&D Systems, and founded Assay Designs. In 2007 we left Assay Designs and, along with Dr. Nancy Schmidt, founded Arbor Assays developing ingenious scientifically advanced kits for the measurement of biological molecules.

In 2017 Russ, Barb and Nancy converted Arbor Assays into a perpetual trust for the employees and turned control over to them.  Russ and Barb “retired” in 2021 and started 21 Grams Assays, Inc. 21 Grams is an assay consulting company that specializes in helping customers make kits that reach their goals.  We take a clients idea and turn it into a stable, reproducible, analytical tool.

Our primary customers are academic, pharmaceutical, biotech and clinical scientists. We will help to build robust immunoassay, detection and enzyme activity kits. We relish taking challenging ideas and turning them into products. Our partnership with Arbor Assays allows your product to be made, tested and shipped worldwide.

We have developed some of the world’s most difficult assays, including the first and the most sensitive 3rd generation clinical TSH assays, small peptide, eicosanoid and steroid immunoassays, along with enzyme activity and detection kits based upon novel generation systems. This allows us to construct your assay from first principles, developing reagents and methods to exploit the intrinsic properties of the molecules to yield rapid, innovative analytical results.

Russell Hart

Russ grew up in the UK and earned a Ph.D. specializing in chemi- and bioluminescence. After postdoc positions at the University of Georgia and the University of Sussex, he joined Abbott Labs Diagnostics. Russ, being a born entrepreneur, has started many companies been pivotal in the revolution in using luminescence for clinical immunoassays.

Barbara Scheuer

Barb was born in northern Minnesota and trained as a Medical Technologist. After several years at hospitals and the Marshfield Clinic, she specialized in QC and QA at FDA-regulated in vitro diagnostic companies such as Kallestad Diagnostics and R&D Systems. She met Russ in Minneapolis and the two of them have started Assay Designs, Luminos, Arbor Assays and now 21 Grams Assays together.