President-elect Donald Trump's pick for Defense secretary, Ret. Gen. James Mattis, has ties with embattled blood-testing start-up Theranos,
Mattis is listed as a company director on the Theranos website.
He joined Theranos' board in mid-2013, shortly after his retirement from the Marines, the The Wall Street Journal reports.
His connections, however, go back further than that. In 2012, Mattis urged the Army to acquire Theranos equipment and deploy it on the battlefield, the Journal reports, citing senior military officials involved in Army medical research. The officials said Theranos wasn't prepared to meet the requirements, however.
Representatives of Theranos, Mattis and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond for CNBC's request for comment.
Theranos, which had been valued at $9 billion, is under investigation by federal regulators and in October closed all of its clinical labs and Wellness Centers. The company's laboratory practices came into question after a report said it misguided investors about its equipment and operations.