StemRad was founded in December 2011 by Oren Milstein and Daniel Levitt. They were inspired to create the company by the Chernobyl disaster where many of the firemen and engineers, who were first on the scene, died from high doses of gamma radiation in an illness known as Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), also known as radiation sickness. This idea was fueled by a sense of urgency due to the growing nuclear threat on the state of Israel. Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011, the two partnered with Roger Kornberg, Aaron Ciechanover and Michael Levitt.