Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., FDA Commissioner

Margaret Hamburg is in charge of protecting the nation's health, and many of the policies passed in the U.S. have global reverb. Most recently, the FDA has been trying to regulate e-cigarettes and announced the government's tobacco authority will monitor the electronic devices. Hamburg also named pipe tobacco, nicotine gels and water pipes as other products subject to oversight. The FDA has also been debating putting calorie counts on the menus of chain restaurants and establishments. Before joining the FDA in 2009, Hamburg was a senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative and assistant secretary for policy and evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Hamburg graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Ralph Snyderman, M.D., Chancellor Emeritus, Duke University

Ralph Snyderman, MD is Chancellor Emeritus, Duke University and James B. Duke Professor of Medicine in the Duke University School of Medicine. He served as Chancellor for Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine at Duke University from 1989 to July 2004 and led the transition of this excellent medical center into an internationally recognized leader of academic medicine. He oversaw the development of the Duke University Health System, one of the most successful integrated academic health systems in the country, and served as its first President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Snyderman has played a leading role in the conception and development of Personalized Health Care, an evolving model of national health care delivery. He was amongst the first to envision and articulate the need to move the current focus of health care from the treatment of disease-events to personalized, predictive, preventive, and participatory care that is focused on the patient. Dr. Snyderman is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing his contributions to research and to developing more rationale models of health care. In 2012, he received the David E. Rogers Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges who referred to Snyderman as “the father of personalized medicine.”

Amir Dan Rubin, President & CEO, Stanford Health Care

Amir Dan Rubin serves as President and CEO of Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto. He previously served as COO for the UCLA Hospital System, responsible for the operations of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopedic Hospital, among others. Prior to UCLA, Amir served as COO for Stony Brook University Hospital where he was involved in efforts to improve quality, operations, and the patient experience. Prior to Stony Brook, Amir served as a VP of Operations for Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, and before that he was Director of Business Development for the corporate parent of the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System.

Brad Gray, President & CEO, NanoString Technologies

R. Bradley Gray has served as a member of the board of directors and as President and Chief Executive Officer since 2010. Prior to joining our company, Mr. Gray held various positions at Genzyme, a biotechnology company acquired by Sanofi in 2011. He served as Vice President of Product & Business Development for Genzyme Genetics, the diagnostic services division of Genzyme, from 2008 to 2010, leading the development of molecular diagnostics and partnering activities. From 2006 to 2008, he served as Vice President of Business & Strategic Development for Genzyme Genetics, leading growth efforts through partnerships and licensing. Mr. Gray joined Genzyme in 2004 as Director of Corporate Development, supporting business development and leading Genzyme Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund of Genzyme. Prior to joining Genzyme, Mr. Gray was a management consultant in the healthcare practice of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. Mr. Gray received a B.A. in Economics and Management from Oxford University, where he studied as a British Marshall Scholar, and an S.B. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Christina Farr, Health Reporter, Thomson Reuters

Christina is a San Francisco-based writer covering Apple and health-technology. She regularly covers breaking tech news, but also writes long-form human interest features. Previously she worked as a staff writer at Venturebeat and a contributor to NPR, the Telegraph, the Bay Citizen, the San Francisco Chronicle, TheNextWeb, among others. In 2011, she received a Masters from the Stanford Graduate School of Journalism. Christina has appeared as a featured expert on Fox Business, CNBC, NBC, ABC News, and others. She also regularly moderates panels, and speaks at tech conferences.

Christopher Longhurst, M.D., CMIO and Hospitalist, Stanford Children's Health

Dr. Christopher Longhurst is a board-certified pediatric hospitalist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Informatics at Stanford University. He also holds an administrative appointment at Stanford Children’s Health as the Chief Medical Information Officer, where he has helped lead the organization through the implementation of a comprehensive electronic medical record (EMR) since 2004. These efforts resulted in national attention in 2010 when Dr. Longhurst published the first-ever correlation between implementation of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and a decrease in hospital-wide mortality. That same year he was honored to be the selected by Modern Healthcare as the youngest of the top 25 Clinical Informaticists nationally in the inaugural annual survey. More recently, Dr. Longhurst co-authored an innovative article in the New England Journal of Medicine which described the first published use of aggregate EMR data to make a real-time patient care decision. He is also the founding program director of the first nationally accredited fellowship in clinical informatics, located at Stanford University Medical Center.

Dane Dickson, M.D., Director, Clinical Science-MolDx, Palmetto GBA

Serving as the MolDX Director of Clinical Science, Dr. Dickson is a board certified medical oncologist. In addition to his work with Palmetto, he also serves as the Director of the Teton Cancer Institute in Southeast Idaho. With over a decade in a full-time clinical practice, Dr. Dickson has served as the President of the Summarius Corporation, which created and implemented an evidence-based method of presenting clinical trial information, as an advisor to two distinct contract medical directors for CMS, serving as a carrier advisory committee member (CAC), as President of the Idaho Society of Clinical Oncology (ISCO), and as a member of the executive subcommittee of the State Affiliate Council of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He received his medical degree from the University of Utah, where he graduated with honors. He then received internal medicine training at Washington Universities Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He completed a medical oncology fellowship at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah.

David H. Persing, M.D., Ph.D., Executive Vice President, CMO & CTO, Cepheid

Dr. Persing first joined us as a director in May 2004, and became our Executive Vice President and Chief Medical and Technology Officer in August 2005. From 1999 to 2005, Dr. Persing was Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Corixa Corporation, a Seattle-based biotechnology company, until its acquisition by GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to that he was a member of the Clinical and Research Faculty in the Department Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where he developed several extramurally funded infectious disease research programs. From 1992 to 1999 he established and directed the Mayo Molecular Microbiology Laboratory which was one of the first reference laboratories to offer cutting-edge molecular diagnostic testing on a worldwide basis. He has authored over 270 peer-reviewed articles including frequently cited papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and PNAS. He served as Editor in Chief for four leading textbooks on Molecular Diagnostics, the most recent of which was released in January 2011. Dr. Persing received his MD and PhD (Genetics) degrees from the University of California, San Francisco in 1988 and completed his residency training in Clinical Pathology at the Yale School of Medicine in 1990.

Dennis J. Slamon, M.D., Ph.D., Women's Cancer Research, UCLA Cancer Center & Board of Directors, BioMarin

Dr. Slamon currently serves as director of Clinical/Translational Research, and as director of the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program, at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Slamon is a professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at, and executive vice chair for research for, UCLA's Department of Medicine and also serves as director of the medical advisory board for the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, a fund-raising organization that promotes advances in colorectal cancer. A 1970 B.A. honors graduate in biology from Washington & Jefferson College and a 1975 graduate of the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine, Dr. Slamon earned his Ph.D. in cell biology that same year. He completed his internship and residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics, becoming chief resident in 1978. One year later, he became a fellow in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at UCLA where he now serves on the faculty of medicine.

Edward Abrahams, Ph.D., President, Personalized Medicine Coalition

Edward Abrahams, Ph.D., is president of the Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC). Representing a broad spectrum of academic, industrial, patient, provider and payer communities, PMC seeks to advance the understanding and adoption of personalized medicine concepts and products for the benefit of patients. It has grown from its original 18 founding members in November 2004 to over 175 today. Previously Dr. Abrahams was Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Association, where he spearheaded the successful effort that led to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s investment of $200 million to commercialize biotechnology in the state. Earlier he had been Assistant Vice President for Federal Relations at the University of Pennsylvania and held a senior administrative position at Brown University. Dr. Abrahams worked for seven years for the U.S. Congress, including as a legislative assistant to Senator Lloyd Bentsen, an economist for the Joint Economic Committee under the chairmanship of Representative Lee Hamilton, and as a AAAS Congressional Fellow for the House Committee on the Interior. The author of numerous essays, Dr. Abrahams serves as senior editor of Personalized Medicine and has also taught history and public policy at Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania.

George Church, Ph.D., Co-developer, Human Genome Project

George Church, Ph.D. Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences & Technology, Harvard and MIT with Walter Gilbert. He developed the first direct genomic sequencing method in 1984 and helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 while he was a Research Scientist at newly-formed Biogen Inc. He invented the broadly-applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags,homologous recombination methods,and DNA array synthesizers. Technology transfer of automated sequencing & software to Genome Therapeutics Corp. resulted in the first commercial genome sequence, (the human pathogen, Helicobacter pylori) in 1994. He initiated the Personal Genome Project (PGP) in 2005 and research on synthetic biology. He is director of the U.S. Department of Energy Center on Bioenergy at Harvard & MIT and director of the National Institutes of Health (NHGRI) Center of Excellence in Genomic Science at Harvard, MIT & Washington University. He has been advisor to 22 companies, most recently co-founding (with Joseph Jacobson, Jay Keasling, and Drew Endy) Codon Devices, a biotech startup dedicated to synthetic biology and (with Chris Somerville) founding LS9, which is focused on biofuels. He is a senior editor for Nature EMBO Molecular Systems Biology.

Girish Putcha, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Laboratory Science, Palmetto GBA (MolDX)

Girish Putcha is currently Director of Laboratory Science for Palmetto GBA’s MolDX program, and the founding Medical Director for Orion Genomics and TOMA Biosciences, personalized medicine companies focused in oncology. Previously, Girish was the founding Medical/Laboratory Director or Chief Medical Officer at Ariosa Diagnostics, Crescendo Bioscience, Life Technologies, and VitaPath Genetics. He also focused on venture capital investments across healthcare, from biopharmaceuticals to medical devices to diagnostics, at Panorama Capital and RiverVest Venture Partners. Prior to this, he held various positions at VeraCyte, CardioDx, and Aviir, all venture-funded personalized medicine companies. Girish received a bachelor's degree from Rice University and two master's degrees from the University of London and the Welcome Institute as a Marshall Scholar. He holds medical and doctoral degrees from Washington University School of Medicine, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular neuroscience. Girish completed his postgraduate medical training at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he also served as adjunct faculty, specializing in molecular genetic pathology.

Giulia C. Kennedy, Ph.D., CSO, SVP of Research, Product, and Clinical Development, Veracyte

Giulia C. Kennedy joined the company in April 2008 and serves as Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Research, Product, and Clinical Development. Prior to joining Veracyte, Dr. Kennedy led the Genomics Collaborations and Genotyping Technology R&D groups at Affymetrix, Inc. Prior to joining Affymetrix, Dr. Kennedy was a scientific leader for the colon cancer and breast cancer gene discovery efforts at Chiron Corporation, resulting in the identification of oncology markers for therapeutic drug development. Dr. Kennedy was previously a scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where she implemented genomic and genetic approaches to uncover diabetes susceptibility genes. She holds a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California at San Francisco in the Biochemistry Department and Hormone Research Institute. Dr. Kennedy has published more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is a co-inventor on more than 20 patents.

Hank Greely, Ph.D., Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law, Stanford University

A leading expert on the legal, ethical, and social issues surrounding health law and the biosciences, Hank Greely (BA ’74) specializes in the implications of new biomedical technologies, especially those related to neuroscience, genetics, and stem cell research. He frequently serves as an advisor on California, national, and international policy issues. He is chair of California’s Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee and a co-director of the Law and Neuroscience Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. Active in university leadership, Professor Greely chairs the steering committee for the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and directs both the law school’s Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics’ Program in Neuroethics. Professor Greely serves on the Scientific Leadership Council for the university’s interdisciplinary Bio-X Program. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1985, Greely was a partner at Tuttle & Taylor, served as a staff assistant to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, and as special assistant to the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense. He served as a law clerk to Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge John Minor Wisdom of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.Greely is also a professor (by courtesy) of genetics at Stanford School of Medicine.

Janusz Dutkowski, Ph.D., Co-founder and CEO, Data4Cure

Janusz combines a background in mathematics and computer science with his experience in biological research to tackle hard problems in medical genomics. Before founding Data4Cure, Janusz was a postdoctoral fellow at the UC San Diego School of Medicine where he developed novel approaches for multiscale network analysis and cancer biomarker discovery. He has also served as a consultant to leading pharmaceutical and business analytics companies.

Jared Heyman, CEO & Founder, CrowdMed

Jared was inspired to start CrowdMed after his sister spent 3 years with a rare undiagnosed illness. He’s a 15-year Internet technology veteran whose previous company, the online market research firm Infosurv, is a multi-million dollar success serving hundreds of clients around the globe. At CrowdMed he acts as CEO and product visionary, determining the strategic direction of both the company and product. Before founding CrowdMed, he spent 2 years on an around-the-world traveling sabbatical that landed him on the cover of Inc. magazine. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin in Business Honors and is also a proud graduate of the Y Combinator accelerator program in Winter 2013.

Jason D. Merker, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine

Dr. Jason Merker is an Assistant Professor of Pathology at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Co-Director of the Stanford Clinical Genomics Service. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He then completed residency training in clinical pathology, fellowship training in molecular genetic pathology and clinical cytogenetics, and post-doctoral training in cancer genomics at Stanford University. Dr. Merker is one of two co-directors of the Stanford Clinical Genomics Service, a clinical laboratory service based at Stanford University Medical Center. This goal of this clinical service is to use genome sequencing to identify the potential genetic cause of disease in patients with unexplained heritable disorders. Dr. Merker also directs a research group that uses classical genetics, genomics, and functional studies to study blood cancers.

Jodi Halpern, M.D., Ph.D, Associate Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities, UC Berkeley

Halpern’s longstanding focus has been on clinical empathy. In addition to From Detached Concern to Empathy: Humanizing Medical Practice, she is completing a book on the role of self-empathy in living well in the wake of illness and disability. She is also beginning work with veterans on their emotional experiences on returning to their families after war. Jodi Halpern. M.D., Ph.D, is Associate Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Joint Medical Program and the School of Public Health. As a psychiatrist with a background in philosophy, she investigates how emotions and the imagination shape healthcare decisions of clinicians and patients. Halpern keeps current with the digital revolution thanks to her playful, curious, eleven-year-old son, whose persuasive powers led to the creation of this website.

John J. Sninsky, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, CareDx Inc.

John Sninsky, Ph.D. joined CareDx Inc. as Chief Scientific Officer in January 2015. CareDx, Inc., based in Brisbane, California, is a molecular diagnostics company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of clinically differentiated, high-value, non-invasive diagnostic surveillance solutions for transplant recipients. John brings a wealth of experience in the discovery, development and application of diagnostic technologies, content and interpretive test solutions ranging from early stage biotechnology to international pharmaceutical organizations as well as a range of CLIA and IVD product settings. He was instrumental in the early development of PCR and companion diagnostics tests for HIV while at Cetus Corp. and Roche Molecular Systems. John oversaw early functional genetic association studies for common complex disease while serving as V.P. of Discovery Research at Celera. Following Celera's acquisition by Quest Diagnostics, he served as the Alameda site head for Quest's Science & Innovation and oversaw organization-wide Bioinformatics. John received a B.S. in biology from Bates College, a Ph.D. in biology from Purdue University and was a postdoctoral fellow in Genetics and Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. John was on the faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology with a joint appointment in the Department of Molecular Biology as well as a member of the AECOM Liver and Cancer Centers.

John Leite, Ph.D., VP of Oncology, Illumina

John is the Vice President of Oncology, Market Development & Product Marketing for Illumina’s recently formed Oncology Business Unit. Prior to joining Illumina, John was Vice President of Commercial Strategy and Market Access for Genoptix Inc., a Novartis company where, from 2008 until 2014, he drove several functions including Marketing and Business Development, building the portfolio of oncology diagnostic services. John began his career as a scientist for Invitrogen (now Thermo Fisher Scientific) before transitioning to the business team as a marketer overseeing product management of the proteomics portfolio. He earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics & Biochemistry from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine in 2000, and was a National Research Service Award Scholar at the California Institute of Technology from 2000 to 2003.

John Ryals, Ph.D., President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Metabolon, Inc.

Dr. John Ryals co-founded Metabolon, Inc. in 2002 and serves as president, CEO and chairman. Metabolon is a pioneer and leader in the field of metabolomics and its use in personalized medicine and human health. Prior to Metabolon, he was a co-founder, CEO and president of Paradigm Genetics, Inc., which he led to a successful IPO in 2002. Paradigm Genetics eventually sold to Monsanto and is now the Monsanto research site in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Prior to Paradigm Genetics, Dr. Ryals joined the Ciba-Geigy Agricultural Biotechnology Unit in 1985, now Syngenta. He worked at various research and management positions at Ciba and later Novartis, leading the agricultural biotechnology efforts of the company from 1993 to 1997 when he departed to form Paradigm Genetics. Dr. Ryals was on the board of Athenix Corp., which was acquired by Bayer Crop Sciences, and is a co-founder and board member of AgBiome, which is located in Research Triangle Park.

John West, CEO, Personalis, Inc.

Personalis’ CEO, John West, first became involved in DNA sequencing and DNA sequence interpretation in 1982. In the 1980’s, he led the development of an automated DNA sequencing system based on pattern recognition from autoradiographs, and licensed software from the lab of Roger Staden at MRC Cambridge, UK for sequence assembly and analysis. In the 1990’s Mr. West was General Manager and subsequently President of Princeton Instruments, a company focused on low light scientific imaging. This technology was used in a number of fluorescent automated DNA sequencing developments. In 2001 Mr. West joined then market leader Applied Biosystems as Vice President of Genetic Analysis. He was subsequently promoted to VP, DNA Platforms. While at Applied Biosystems Mr. West’s group introduced the model 3730xl Genetic Analyzer. This product became the mainstay of almost every major genome center in the world.

In 2004, Mr. West moved to be CEO of Solexa Ltd, a venture capital backed UK company focused primarily on single-molecule DNA sequencing. Mr. West realized that the company’s recent acquisition of DNA cluster technology could be transformative. In 2005 he led Solexa’s reverse merger into US-based and Nasdaq-listed Lynx Therapeutics, and led two PIPE financings totaling almost $100M. The company introduced its first system in mid-2006. Mr. West negotiated the January 2007 acquisition of Solexa by Illumina, Inc for approximately $600M, and stayed as VP of the DNA sequencing business there into 2008. During this time, Illumina became the world leader in next generation DNA sequencing.

From 2009 through mid-2011 Mr. West served as CEO of ViaCyte, Inc, a company leveraging stem cell technology to develop a diabetes cell therapy.

In late 2009 Mr. West’s family became the first healthy family of four to be sequenced. Their experience working with the Stanford team on genome interpretation led to the foundation of Personalis.

Mr. West received a BS and MS engineering degrees from MIT, and earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Jose Haresco, Ph.D., Managing Dir. & Sr. Equity Analyst, Medical Devices & MDX, JMP Securities, LLC

Jose J. Haresco III, Ph.D. is a senior equity research analyst and Managing Director at JMP Securities. He currently leads two research verticals: Medical Devices, and Life Science Tools and Diagnostic. He joined the firm in 2010 to provide fundamental research on a variety of companies ranging from Illumina and Genomic Health to Intuitive Surgical and Boston Scientific. For almost a decade, Dr. Haresco’s research has been recognized by leading industry publications including the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, and Forbes. Prior to becoming a sell-side analyst, Dr. Haresco worked for Roche Molecular Systems and Boehringer Mannheim. Dr. Haresco holds a Ph.D. in Biological and Medical Informatics from the University of California, San Francisco, where he developed genetic algorithms for structure based drug design in the lab of Professor Emeritus Irwin “Tack” Kuntz, Ph.D. He also holds a B.S. in genetics from the University of California, Davis, and has been granted two patents involving small molecule mediated PDZ-domain inhibition.

Kathryn Blair, Ph.D., Director of Product Management, Seven Bridges Genomics

Kate Blair leads a team of more than 50 scientists, engineers and designers in building cloud-deployed platforms for next-generation sequencing (NGS) analysis. Currently, she focuses her efforts on developing one of the three Cancer Genomics Cloud Pilots for the National Cancer Institute. In 2012, she joined Seven Bridges Genomics, inspired by the company’s mission to build self-improving systems for analyzing millions of genomes using novel technologies and a unique focus on big, hairy, biological questions. Dr. Blair was trained as a molecular and cell biologist at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar. Through her work on interspecies transcriptional differences in embryonic stem cells, she gained insight into the analysis bottlenecks that accompany NGS technology, including rapidly evolving reference datasets, difficulties sharing analyses, independent validation of results, biological interpretation, and reproducibility. She is pleased to be part of a team that is tackling these problems.

Kim Popovits, Chairman, CEO & President, Genomic Health

Kim Popovits has served as president and CEO of Genomic Health since 2009 and as president and chief operating officer since 2002. Prior to joining Genomic Health, Popovits served in various roles, most recently as senior vice president of marketing and sales, at Genentech, Inc. During her 15 years at Genentech, she led the successful commercialization of 14 new therapies, including Herceptin. Before joining Genentech, Popovits served as division manager for American Critical Care. In 2008, Popovits was named Woman of the Year by the Women Health Care Executives, and she has been named one of the Most Influential Women in the Bay Area by The San Francisco Business Times from 2006 to 2011. She holds a bachelor of arts in business from Michigan State University.

Krishna Yeshwant, M.D., General Partner, Google Ventures

Dr. Krishna Yeshwant is a physician, programmer, and entrepreneur who has been working with Google Ventures since its inception. He first joined Google as part of the New Business Development team. Prior to Google he helped start an electronic data interchange company that was acquired by Hewlett-Packard and a network security company that was acquired by Symantec. He also co-authored the business plan for Diagnostics For All, which won both the Harvard Business School and MIT $100k business plan competitions. Previously, Krishna published several book chapters and journal articles in the field of computer-guided surgery, completed research in tissue engineering, and developed and licensed multiple surgical devices. He has worked with the technology transfer offices of MIT, Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Lawrence “Rusty” Hofmann, M.D., Co-Founder, Grand Rounds, Inc.

Dr. Lawrence “Rusty” Hofmann is a Professor at Stanford School of Medicine, Chief of Interventional Radiology at Stanford University Medical Center, and Co-Founder of Grand Rounds, Inc. He has devoted his career to providing state-of-the-art care to patients at either Johns Hopkins, where he practiced for 10 years, or Stanford, where he practiced for 8 years. He has published over 100 scientific articles on minimally invasive treatment of blood clots (DVT) and cancer. In addition, his research has encompassed stem cell therapies as well as gene therapies.

Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., President, Institute for Systems Biology

Dr. Hood’s research has focused on fundamental biology (immunity, evolution, genomics) and on bringing engineering to biology through the development of five instruments; the DNA and protein sequencers and synthesizers and the ink-jet oligonucleotide synthesizer (making DNA arrays) for deciphering the various types of biological information (DNA, RNA, proteins and systems). These instruments constitute the technological foundation for modern molecular biology and genomics. He has applied these technologies to diverse fields including immunology, neurobiology, cancer biology, molecular evolution and systems medicine. Dr. Hood is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Association of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Hood is one of only 7 (of more than 6000 members) scientists elected to all three academies (NAS, NAE and IOM). Dr. Hood has also played a role in founding more than 14 biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Systemix, Darwin and Rosetta. He is currently pioneering systems medicine and the systems approach to disease and has recently cofounded the company Integrated Diagnostics—that hopefully will become a platform company for P4 medicine.

Malay Gandhi, Managing Director, Rock Health

Malay serves as Rock Health’s Managing Director, leading the organization and working closely with portfolio companies. He joined Rock Health in 2012 after nearly eight years with Deloitte Consulting’s healthcare practice. Malay earned a Masters concentrated in Health Policy and Management from the University of Pittsburgh and a BS from West Virginia University. His work in digital health has been cited in the Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, CNBC, USA Today, Inc. and KQED.

Mark Erlander, Ph.D., CSO, Trovagene

Mark Erlander has more than 18 years of experience directing and leading research and development for gene discovery, with a strong focus on molecular diagnostics. Since 2012, Dr. Erlander has also served as Chief Scientific Officer of Gensignia, Inc., a lung cancer diagnostics company. Prior to joining Trovagene, Dr. Erlander was chief scientific officer at bioTheranostics, a bioMerieux company. Previously, Dr. Erlander was a group leader and subsequently a research fellow at the R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute (Johnson & Johnson). He was also an assistant member and postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute in the Department of Molecular Biology. Dr. Erlander holds a BS degree in Biochemistry from the University of California, Davis; an MS degree in Biochemistry from Iowa State University; and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Martin G. Reese, Ph.D., Co-founder, President and CSO, Omicia Inc.

Dr. Martin Reese is an internationally recognized expert and entrepreneur in Genomics and Bioinformatics. Prior to founding Omicia, Dr. Reese served as Vice President of Discovery Informatics for ValiGen. Prior to this, Dr. Reese co-founded Neomorphic, where he served as President and Chief Scientific Officer. The human genome annotation software that Dr. Reese developed at Neomorphic, provided the foundation for the successful commercialization of microarrays by Affymetrix. During his career Dr. Reese has been actively involved in community-wide assessments of genome annotation. He organized the state-of-the-art Genome Annotation Assessment Project and was a member of the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project, which provided the essential proof-of-concept platform for “shotgun” sequencing technology. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories Dr. Reese developed gene-finding algorithms for the Human Genome Project. He holds a Masters degree in Medical Informatics from the University of Heidelberg and a Ph.D. in Genetics jointly from the University of Hohenheim, Germany and the University of California, Berkeley.

Martin Naley, Founder and CEO, Cure Forward

Martin Naley is the founder and CEO of Cure Forward, a company that spans digital health, genomics, and social media, to make personalized medicine accessible and practically useful for patients. The company is being incubated by Apple Tree Partners, where Martin has been an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Prior to joining Apple Tree Partners, Martin held many roles over a span of 15 years at Life Technologies, from sales rep to CEO Chief of Staff, where he worked with partners to develop some of the first NGS-based diagnostic tests and shaped a worldwide network for genomic data sharing. Mr. Naley holds a B.A. in Biological Sciences from Cornell and an M.B.A. from Yale.

Maurie Markman, M.D., President, Medicine & Science, CTCA

Dr. Maurie Markman is the President, Medicine & Science, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, and for more than 25 years has been engaged in clinical research in the area of gynecologic malignancies, with a particular focus on new drug development and exploring novel management strategies in female pelvic cancers. Dr. Markman has been the primary author or co-author on over 1,000 published peer-reviewed manuscripts, reviews, book chapters, editorials or abstracts, and has written, edited or co-edited 23 books on various topics in the management of malignant disease.

Michael Ball, CEO, GenoLogics

Michael Ball, the CEO for GenoLogics Life Sciences Software, has 20 years of experience in sales, marketing and business development with high growth technology companies. Michael has held VP positions at various technology companies including five years in executive management with Creo Products Inc. as VP Business Development and VP European Sales and Service. In addition, Michael was VP at Carmanah Technologies, spent seven years at Digital Equipment Corp. and has experience with several technology start-ups. Michael has a sound knowledge of mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships, extensive international experience and has been instrumental in repositioning GenoLogics from a single product company to a comprehensive research informatics vendor for the life sciences industry.

Michael Snyder, Ph.D., Professor & Chair, Stanford Center for Genomics & Personalized Medicine

Michael Snyder is the Stanford Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics and the Director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Dr. Snyder received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics. His laboratory study was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism, and currently carries out a variety of projects in the areas of genomics and proteomics both in yeast and humans. These include the large-scale analysis of proteins using protein microarrays and the global mapping of the binding sites of chromosomal proteins. His laboratory built the first proteome chip for any organism and the first high resolution tiling array for the entire human genome.

Mike Nolan, Vice President & General Manager, Clinical Genetic Analysis Business, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Mike Nolan is the Global Vice President and General Manager for the Clinical Genetic Analysis Business at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He received his B.S. in Biological Sciences and M.B.A. from the University of Wyoming, where he achieved academic and leadership honors. He has over 23 years’ experience in clinical diagnostics, having led teams to develop and commercialize several products that were the first of their kind in industry and medicine, including the first-ever FDA-approved PCR-based genetic assay. His work focuses on delivering clinically useful and, in some cases, transformative solutions by applying technologies such as qPCR, Sanger Sequencing, and Next-generation Sequencing to help medical care teams answer clinical questions. Mr. Nolan is a member of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Genetic Sciences Leadership Team and serves on the Board of Directors for companies and organizations that are committed to advancing healthcare, education, and communities.

Murali Prahalad, Ph.D., President & CEO, Epic Sciences

Dr. Prahalad currently holds the title of President and CEO of Epic Sciences, Inc. Prior to joining EPIC, Dr. Prahalad held various roles at Life Technologies Corporation. Dr. Prahalad joined Life Technologies eventually becoming VP, Corporate Strategy where he helped shape the organic and inorganic investment priorities across Life Technologies’ research tools, clinical diagnostic and applied markets portfolios. His role culminated in the strategic sale of Life Technologies to ThermoFisher Scientific in 2013 for $13.6B, the largest non-pharmaceutical acquisition in the biotechnology space. Prior to joining Life Technologies, Dr. Prahalad was the Vice President of Business Development for Sequenom Inc., a San Diego, CA-based biotechnology company.

Nicholas Dracopoli, Ph.D., Vice President, Janssen R&D

Dr. Nicholas Dracopoli is Vice President, Head Oncology Biomarkers at Janssen R&D, Johnson & Johnson. In this role he is responsible for biomarker discovery, development and applications for oncology products. Previously, he was Vice President of Clinical Discovery Technologies at Bristol-Myers Squibb, and prior to that spent five years in the biotechnology industry at Sequana Therapeutics. Dr Dracopoli obtained his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of London, and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Subsequently, he served as an Assistant Director at the Whitehead/MIT Genome Center, and as a Section Chief at the National Center for Human Genome Research at the NIH before moving to the biotechnology industry. Dr Dracopoli has authored >70 scientific publications, and has extensive experience in the fields of genomics, molecular biology and cancer research.

Nigam H. Shah, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Stanford School of Medicine

Dr. Nigam H. Shah is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Biomedical Informatics) at the Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. Shah’s research is focused on developing applications of bio-ontologies, specifically building novel approaches to annotate, index, integrate and analyze diverse information types available in biomedicine. He teaches on the topics of how to make and use biomedical ontologies, current trends & future directions in biomedical ontologies and reasoning with biomedical data – in the form of tutorials at professional conferences and in Stanford graduate courses. Dr. Shah holds an MBBS from Baroda Medical College, India, a PhD from Penn State University, USA and completed post-doctoral training at the Stanford Medical School; He co-chairs the Bio-Ontologies meeting at the Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology conference since 2008.

Patrick (Pat) Roche, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Research and Development, HTG Molecular Diagnostics

Dr. Roche joins HTG from Ventana Medical Systems/Roche Tissue Diagnostics where he served as Vice President of Translational Diagnostics and was responsible for interfacing with pharmaceutical partners in their development of targeted cancer therapeutics and facilitating the transition of biomarkers into companion diagnostics. Dr. Roche also led reagent product development at Ventana, launching over thirty in vitro diagnostic (IVD) products, including the FDA-approved c-kit and HER2 tests. Prior to his time at Ventana, Dr. Roche served as Director of the Immunohistochemistry Laboratory and Associate Professor of Pathology and Biochemistry-Molecular Biology for Mayo Clinic Rochester. Dr. Roche has co-authored more than 125 peer-reviewed publications.

Patrick McCormick, M.D., Chair, CEJA, AMA

Dr. McCormick is a board certified Neurosurgeon and practicing partner of the Neurosurgical Network, Inc. in Toledo Ohio. Currently, he is also the Section Head of Neurosurgery at St. Luke's Hospital. From 1995 to 2008 he has represented Ohio as an alternate delegate and delegate to the American Medical Association-House of Delegates and represented the Lucas County Medical Association as a Delegate to the Ohio State Medical Association. Dr. McCormick has served on the Northwest Ohio Mercy Health System Regional Ethics board. He is a past chairman of the Ethics Committee of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and has served as the Associate Editor of the AANS “Neurosurgeon Quarterly”. He worked with the Institute of Medicine task force which generated “Harmonizing Reporting on Potential Conflicts of Interest”, and was selected for the NIH special study section on clinical applications of functional spectroscopy.

Paul Radensky, M.D., Partner, McDermott Will & Emery LLP

Paul is a recognized authority on the full range of legal, regulatory and reimbursement issues pertaining to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and clinical laboratory development and marketing. His background as a clinical researcher and medical practitioner informs his practical and scientific understanding of both product manufacturers and clinical laboratories. He advises manufacturers at every stage of product development, including the design and monitoring of clinical trials, positioning and applying for FDA approval, maintaining regulatory compliance, and obtaining coverage, coding and payment for new technologies by Medicare, Medicaid and other third party payors. Paul also advises clinical laboratories on CLIA and state licensure compliance as well as evolving policies on FDA regulation of laboratory-developed tests.

Peter Bach, M.D., MAPP, Director, Center for Health Policy & Outcomes, Memorial Sloan Kettering

The Director of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Center for Health Policy and Outcomes, Dr. Bach is a physician, epidemiologist, writer, and recognized expert in healthcare policy whose work has been regularly featured in major scientific and lay press outlets such as the NEJM, JAMA, and the New York Times. Dr. Bach is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Board on Health Care Services and National Cancer Policy Forum and the Committee on Performance Measurement of the National Committee on Quality Assurance; he is also the Chair of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Technical Expert Panel, which works to develop quality measures for PPS-exempt cancer hospitals. Dr. Bach has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and editorials in scientific journals as well as 16 healthcare-related op-eds in outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. He has served as a mentor to 15 postdoctoral researchers, given more than 100 invited seminars, and been the recipient of multiple NIH grants. View a comprehensive list of media coverage received by Dr. Bach and his work.

Pravene Nath, M.D., CIO of Stanford Health Care

Dr. Nath was appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Stanford Hospital and Clinics in July 2013. He initially joined Stanford Hospital and Clinics in 2008 as Chief Medical Information Officer and also held the roles of Associate CIO, Interim CIO, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Nath has overseen the deployment of the enterprise Epic EHR, culminating in the HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 EMR Adoption recognition in 2010, Leapfrog Top Hospital recognition from 2009 through 2013, and Most Wired Hospital recognition from 2010 through 2013. He has also been instrumental in establishing several new technology programs at SHC, including the clinical and business analytics program the Stanford Health Cloud for virtual care. Most recently, he has led the insourcing of applications and the development of a reorganized information technology services group. Prior to joining Stanford, Dr. Nath was the Chief Medical Information Officer and Senior Director of Clinical Information Systems at NYU Langone Medical Center, where he led a large scale clinical system implementation for three hospitals. He received his B.S.E. in biomedical engineering from Duke University and his M.D. and M.S.E. in biomedical engineering from The University of Michigan. He completed his residency in emergency medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Ramji Srinivasan, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Counsyl

Ramji Srinivasan grew up on Long Island in a family of doctors. Now he’s aiming to give both doctors and patients better medical data so they can make choices that improve outcomes. Ramji dropped out of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in 2007 to launch Counsyl with several co-founders. His goal was to make preventative medicine achievable with improved molecular screening. As CEO, Ramji oversees operations and technological development at Counsyl. He’s played an integral role in the creation of Counsyl’s highly-automated lab, as well as the company’s platform for patient and doctor communications. Ramji earned a B.S. in computer science and an M.S. in financial mathematics, both from Stanford University.

Richard Klausner, M.D., Chief Medical Officer & Interim General Manager, Oncology, Illumina

Richard (Rick) Klausner joined Illumina as Chief Medical Officer in September 2013. Rick is responsible for Illumina’s strategies for advancing genomics into clinical medicine and public health. He is also part of Illumina’s executive management team, which is responsible for directing all aspects of company strategy, planning and operations. Prior to joining Illumina, Rick was managing partner of the venture capital firm, The Column Group. Previously, he held roles as Executive Director for Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and as the eleventh director of the National Cancer Institute between 1995 and 2001. He has served as chief of the cell biology and metabolism branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, as well as a past president of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He also has been Chairman of the National Science Education Standards Projects of the National Academy of Sciences. Rick currently chairs the International Advisory Board for Samsung, is the Chairman of Audax Health, and previously chaired the Strategic Oversight Council of Sanofi. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Rick holds an M.D. from Duke Medical School.

Rina Wolf, VP Commercialization Strategies, XIFIN, Inc.

Rina Wolf, Vice President of Commercialization Strategies, Consulting & Industry Affairs, XIFIN, Inc. Ms. Wolf is a nationally recognized expert in the field of laboratory commercialization and reimbursement, with over 20 years of experience in the diagnostic laboratory industry, specializing in Molecular Diagnostic Laboratories. She lectures extensively on these topics and has consulted for major laboratories and laboratory associations throughout the U.S.. She is a former President and board member of the California Clinical Laboratory Association and is an active participant with the ACLA (American Clinical Laboratory Association) and the Personalized Medicine Coalition. Most recently Ms. Wolf held the position of Vice President of Reimbursement and Regulatory Affairs at Axial Biotech, Inc. where she was responsible for creating and implementing their successful reimbursement strategies. Prior to joining Axial Biotech, Inc. Ms Wolf held executive positions in the area of commercialization and reimbursement at RedPath Integrated Pathology, Inc., Genomic Health, Inc., and Esoterix (now LabCorp). Ms. Wolf has a Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA and a Masters of HealthCare Administration.

Shawn M. Marcell, President & Chief Executive Officer, Metamark Genetics

Shawn Marcell joined Metamark in early 2013. An experienced executive with a record of building life science and technology businesses, raising capital, creating value, and setting the stage for growth and investor exit, Mr. Marcell previously served as general manager at Hologic Gen-Probe; vice president of molecular diagnostics at Sequenom; president and CEO of SensiGen, and Redpoint Bio; and senior vice president of the University City Science Center. Mr. Marcell has been a fellow and advisory board member of Weiss Tech House, University of Pennsylvania, and an adjunct faculty member at The Wharton School. He holds a BA in Economics from The George Washington University.

Stefan Roever, Co-founder & CEO, Genia Technologies

Stefan Roever has a broad entrepreneurial, software, and finance background. He was Co-Founder and CEO of Brokat Technologies, an encryption banking software company. Brokat reached a several billion dollar market cap and went public in 1998 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on NASDAQ in 2000. Mr. Roever was honored with the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Germany. He is an active private equity investor and currently serves as Chairman of WRS Materials, a roll-up of wafer reclaim companies. Mr. Roever also is a two time award holder of Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. He earned degrees in both economics and law from the University of Tuebingen.

Stephen Eck, M.D., Ph.D., VP & Global Head of Oncology Medical Sciences, Astellas Pharma Global Development

Stephen Eck, M.D., Ph.D, is VP and Global Head of Oncology Medical Sciences at Astellas Pharma Global Development, where he is responsible for the oversight of oncology drug development plans, much of which focuses on special cancer populations for which unique biology enables the development of personalized therapies. Dr. Eck previously served as VP Translational Medicine & Pharmacogenomics at Eli Lilly where he was responsible for the clinical pharmacology components of drug development. Prior to that, Dr. Eck served in a variety of drug development leadership roles at Pfizer. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, serves on the SAB of the ACGT Foundation and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Fairbanks Institute.

Steve Miller, M.D., Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer, Express Scripts

Dr. Steve Miller's focus is on supporting government relations, leading the Pharmacy & Therapeutics committee, managing the Medical Affairs team and interfacing with client groups. Steve has served as Chief Medical Officer since 2006 and has been a valuable leader in all clinical matters, including our e-prescribing initiatives, our specialty offering and overall product development. He received his medical degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and he trained in the Pathology and Research fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and in cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Steve also earned his MBA at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. Steve reports directly to Tim Wentworth.

Susan Gross, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Natera

Dr. Gross, in addition to serving as Natera's CMO, holds an appointment as a Professor of Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women's Health, Pediatrics and Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is the founding director of the Program for Jewish Genetic Health at Einstein/YU. She has also served as division director for Reproductive Genetics at Montefiore Medical Center, and founded the Human Genetics Laboratory at Jacobi Medical Center with the mission to provide equal access to state-of-the-art prenatal genetic services to the underserved. Dr. Gross served as the program director for the Medical Genetics Residency Training Program at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Residency Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). She was a vice-chair of the Committee for Clinical Investigations (IRB) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and has sat on national guideline and policy committees for both the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) as well as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AGOG). She has lectured and published extensively on prenatal screening and genetic testing with a focus on new technologies and public health policy. Dr. Gross received her medical degree from the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology, as well as a fellowship in Maternal Fetal Medicine. She is board certified in both Obstetrics and Gynecology and Medical Genetics.

Tim Sullivan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ancestry.com

Tim Sullivan has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer and as a director since September 2005. Prior to joining us, Tim was Chief Operating Officer and then President and CEO of Match.com from January 2001 to September 2004. From May 1999 to January 2001, he served as Vice President of E-commerce for Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch, Inc. From June 1991 to May 1999, Tim held multiple positions at The Walt Disney Company, including Vice President and Managing Director of Buena Vista Home Entertainment Asia Pacific from July 1997 to May 1999. Tim holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tom Caskey,M.D., Professor, Baylor College of Medicine

Dr. Tom Caskey currently serves as Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. He previously was the Director of the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Tom previously served as Senior Vice President, Human Genetics and Vaccines Discovery at Merck Research Laboratories, West Point and as President of the Merck Genome Research Institute. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, Royal Society of Canada, and past President of the American Society of Human Genetics and the Human Genome Organization, and Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science. His genetic research has identified the genetic basis of ten major inheritable diseases and opened up the understanding of triplet repeat diseases (Fragile X, myotonic dystrophy and others). His personal identification patent is the basis of worldwide application for forensic science and he is also a consultant to the FBI in forensic science.

Tom Willis, Ph.D., CEO, Sequenta

Prior to founding Sequenta, Tom has been an entrepreneur in the biotech industry for the past decade. After receiving his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University, in 1996, he joined the Stanford Genome Technology Center (SGTC) to work on DNA sequence analysis technologies. He held several positions at the SGTC including Associate Director in charge of technology development. While at SGTC, Mr. Willis was the co-inventor of the Molecular Inversion Probe technology for high throughput genotyping. In 2001, co-founded ParAllele BioScience to develop and commercialize this technology. As its founding CEO, he led ParAllele through two rounds of VC financing and grew the company to over 80 employees. In 2005 ParAllele was acquired by Affymetrix at which time Tom served in several management positions at Affymetrix. He left in 2007 to pursue new startup opportunities. In addition to his role at Sequenta, Tom serves on the boards of SpinX Technologies and Boreal Genomics.

Vince Ramey, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, DNAnexus

Vince is a bioinformatics expert who has conducted neuroscience, structural biology, and genomics research projects. During his graduate work he both worked at the bench and developed algorithms for electron microscope image analysis of microtubule binding proteins. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Genetics with a minor in Bioinformatics from UC Davis, and a PhD in Biophysics from UC Berkeley.

Albert Crescenzo, Ph.D., Principal Solution Scientist, Precision Medicine, Thomson Reuters

Albert Crescenzo, Ph.D. joined Thomson Reuters’ Precision Medicine group as a Solution Scientist in 2014 and is a technical and scientific lead responsible for obtaining and managing customer and partner feedback, presentations and genomic variant curation for the Clinical Genomics Toolkit (CGT). His goal is to enable the CGT to be the authoritative source of clinically-informative, diagnostic-quality genomic interpretation information. Prior to joining Thomson Reuters, he has had extensive experience in ‘omics software interfaces, data processing and content having worked at NextBio (Illumina) and Appistry Inc. In addition, Albert has a decade of experience in drug discovery informatics and scientific database design in the pharmaceutical industry at MDL Information Systems and Symyx Solutions. He received his doctorate in Molecular Biology and Biophysics from Yale University.

Andy Kogelnik, M.D., Ph.D., Founder & Director, Open Medicine Institute (OMI)

Andreas Kogelnik, MD, PhD is founder and Director of OMI and a practicing physician. Prior to OMI, Dr. Kogelnik founded two companies and a non-profit organization. Having received his MD from Emory University, a PhD in Bioengineering from Georgia Tech, and completing his medical residency and fellowship at Stanford, he has been centrally involved in the information and genomic revolutions in medicine. He has served as an advisor/consultant to many Silicon Valley biotech and IT organizations including Epocrates, Counsyl, the Fogarty Institute for Innovation, and the El Camino Hospital Genomic Medicine Institute.

Ann Kapoun, Ph.D., Vice President of Translational Medicine, OncoMed Pharmaceuticals

Ann Kapoun is Vice President of Translational Medicine at OncoMed Pharmaceuticals. Her expertise is in the clinical execution and implementation of biomarkers and patient stratification approaches. Dr. Kapoun served as Associate Director of Biomarker R&D in Clinical Pharmacology & Experimental Medicine at ALZA / Johnson & Johnson. Prior to that she was the Department Head of Biomarker R&D at Scios Inc., where she was responsible for their Biomarker and Pharmacogenomics programs in support of clinical trials. Dr. Kapoun received her Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, and she has co-authored more than 30 scientific publications and patents.

Anthony Wiemelt, Ph.D., Chief Administrative Officer Precision Medicine, Penn Medicine

Anthony Wiemelt is Penn Medicine’s Chief Administrative Officer for Precision Medicine. Dr. Wiemelt is developing the strategic and operational aspects of Penn Medicine’s Precision Medicine program throughout the Perelman School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Dr. Wiemelt partners with Penn Medicine physicians, hospital leadership, Pathology’s Center for Personalized Diagnostics, Abramson Cancer Center, and external industry partners to develop and implement annual and long-term strategic, entrepreneurial, operational, and financial goals in Precision Medicine. Prior to joining Penn Medicine in 2013, he served at Merck & Co., Inc. as Director of Global Project and Portfolio Management, where he led drug development teams and orchestrated senior management oversight of the Infectious Disease franchise. In this role, he facilitated the translation of strategy and goals into specific business outcomes for the portfolio, managing scope, budget, and prioritization reviews. Previously, he led similar efforts in the Oncology franchise and oversaw the development of related technology projects. Dr. Wiemelt completed his Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Cell and Molecular Biology and also earned his PhD in Neuroscience (Biomedical Graduate Studies) at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a BS Chemistry from Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA.

Brian Kennedy, Ph.D., CEO and Scientific Director, Buck Institute

Brian K. Kennedy, PhD, has an international reputation for his work in the basic biology of aging. He became the Buck Institute’s second CEO in July, 2010, coming from the University of Washington in Seattle where he served in the Department of Biochemistry. Kennedy earned his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is well known for work during his graduate studies with Leonard Guarente PhD, which led to the discovery that Sirtuins (SIR2) modulate aging. His current work involves nutrient signaling pathways linked to dietary restriction, particularly the TOR pathway. He also studies A-type nuclear lamins, which are targets for mutation in Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Dr. Kennedy has served on the National Institutes of Health Cellular Mechanisms of Aging and Development study section since 2006, and on the grant review committee for American Federation for Aging Research Grants since 2006. He has published more than 60 manuscripts in prestigious journals including Cell, Nature, Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has been an Associate Editor for the Journal of Gerontology since 2006, and also serves as a consultant for biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

Brian Wells, Associate VP Health Technology & Academic Computing, Penn Medicine

Brian Wells is the Associate Vice President of Health Technology and Academic Computing at Penn Medicine, a $4.3 billion health care provider organization consisting of over 2,000 physicians providing services to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Pennsylvania Hospital, Chester County Hospital and the health system network that serves the city of Philadelphia, the surrounding five county area and parts of southern New Jersey. Mr. Wells joined Penn Medicine in September, 2007 and is currently responsible for software development along with academic computing informatics and infrastructure. Previously at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia he was the Project Director of two large Epic implementations – Patient Access/Revenue Cycle and Specialty Care. Beginning in 1997 he was the founder and Chief Technology Officer of InteHealth Incorporated. For eight years prior to that he was the CTO of GMIS, Inc. and led the development and support of 11 expert system software products for the payor market. Previously, his nine years of software development and support experience at Siemens (SMS) provided him extensive management background in all aspects of healthcare product development. Mr. Wells earned his MBA from Villanova and his undergraduate Computer Systems degree from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Charles A. Nicolette, Ph.D., CSO, Argos Therapeutics

Charles A. Nicolette, Ph.D. has served as Chief Scientific Officer since December 2007 and as Vice President of Research and Development since December 2004. Dr. Nicolette served as Vice President of Research from July 2003 to December 2004. Prior to joining Argos, Dr. Nicolette served in various positions at Genzyme Molecular Oncology, Inc., a biotechnology company, from 1997 to 2003, most recently as Director of Antigen Discovery. Dr. Nicolette received a B.S. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and cellular and developmental biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, completing his doctoral dissertation and post-doctoral fellowship at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Christopher Jowett, Medical Technology Global Commercial Head CDx, Abbott Molecular

Christopher J. Jowett is the Global Commercial Head, Companion Diagnostics for Abbott Molecular, he was appointed to his current role in April 2012. Previously, he served as GM Commercial Operations, U.S. & Canada for Abbott Molecular responsible for Sales, Marketing for greater than 450 molecular products in the areas of Infectious Disease, Genetics, and Oncology. Jowett joined Abbott in 1991 and has served in various Sales & Marketing positions across multiple Abbott Divisions. These include Director of Sales U.S., Abbott Molecular, Director of Marketing, U.S. & Canada, Abbott Molecular, and Global Marketing Manager, Abbott Molecular. Jowett leads the Companion Diagnostic organization responsible for managing the current Pharma Partnerships which include Pfizer, GSK, Merck, and AbbVie (formerly Abbott Pharma), as well as the development of new Companion Diagnostic business for Abbott Molecular.

Cliff Reid, Ph.D., CEO, Complete Genomics

Clifford A. Reid, Ph.D., is co-founder of Complete Genomics and has served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman since July 2005 and as a member of the board of directors since July 2005. From March 2003 to September 2005, Dr. Reid was Vice President of Collaborative Solutions at Open Text Corporation, a software company. In 1995, Dr. Reid co-founded Eloquent, Inc., a digital video communications company, and served as its Chief Executive Officer until 1999 and as its Chairman until 2003, when it was acquired by Open Text. In 1988, Dr. Reid co-founded Verity, Inc., an enterprise text search engine company, and served as its Vice President of Engineering from 1988 to 1992 and as its Executive Vice President from 1992 to 1993. Dr. Reid received a B.S. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

Cornelius F. Boerkoel, M.D., Ph.D., CMO, Appistry

Dr. Cornelius Boerkoel received his MD and PhD from Case Western Reserve University. He trained in pediatrics at the University of Washington and in clinical genetics at the University of Toronto. He entered clinical practice in genetics and completed post-doctoral training at the Baylor College of Medicine. In 2006, he joined the faculty at the University of British Columbia where he continued his translational research, collaborated with anthropology and sociology on developing “villages of support” for families with unique disorders, and founded the Rare Disease Foundation. He was appointed director of the research laboratory in the Undiagnosed Diseases Program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2010.

Dan Rhodes, Ph.D., Head of Oncology Strategy, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Dr. Rhodes is a specialist in cancer genomics and is most recently published in Cancer Discovery on “Identification of targetable FGFR gene fusions in diverse cancers.” He commercialized the Oncomine™ database by co-founding Compendia Bioscience with Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan in 2006. Now as part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Dr. Rhodes continues to develop cancer diagnostics through genomic analysis as Head of Oncology Strategy for the company. Dr. Rhodes has received several awards for his work including the Harold Weintraub Award and the Team Science Award from the AACR, and he maintains a part-time faculty research position at The University of Michigan Center for Translational Pathology. Dr. Rhodes received both a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology and a Doctorate in Bioinformatics and Cancer Biology from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

David A. Dworaczyk, Ph.D., Director, Life and Health Sciences Strategic Development, Oracle

Dr. Dworaczyk has done extensive work with numerous Healthcare, Pharma, Biotech, Diagnostic and CRO focused Venture and Private Equity investment groups assessing and evaluating investment opportunities from an operational, strategic and business potential perspective. He is currently the Director of Life and Health Sciences Strategic Development at Oracle and has also served as COO for Comprehensive Clinical Development, Sr. Vice President, General Manager & COO at Generation Health/MetaDiagnostic, a start-up focused on molecular diagnostics, genomics and personalized medicine, and was COO for M2Gen, a for-profit subsidiary of the Moffitt Cancer Center. His responsibilities included leading all operational functions across multiple business units with extensive experience in genomics/biomarkers, translational medicine, patient targeted drug development and personalized medicine. Dr. Dworaczyk has over 30-yrs of experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, molecular diagnostic, medical device and CRO industry where he has held senior level positions in R&D, Global Operations, Business Development (L&A/M&A), Clinical Development, Strategic Planning, Project Management and Commercial Operations. He has been directly engaged in start-up companies and turn-around situations. He has also gained expertise in Decision and Risk Analysis, has done extensive research in strategic planning, R&D portfolio management. Dr. Dworaczyk has advanced degrees in Cell and Molecular Biology and in Leadership and Business Administration.

David Glazer, Engineering Director, Google

David is an engineering director at Google, currently helping life science organizations use Google's Cloud Platform to accelerate and scale their work with big data. His previous projects at Google include creating and leading the Google+ Platform team, overseeing the company's developer-facing offerings, and leading product and infrastructure teams for Google Apps. Prior to joining Google in 2006, he successfully started two companies: Verity in 1988 (IPO 1995), which did full-text search, and Eloquent in 1995 (IPO 2000), which used rich media to power business communications. Eloquent was later acquired by Open Text, an enterprise software firm, where David served as CTO. David grew up in Massachusetts, where he earned a BS in physics from MIT.

David Haussler, Ph.D., Director, UCSC Cancer Genomics Hub, University of California, Santa Cruz

David Haussler’s UC Santa Cruz research team assembled and posted the first working draft of the genome on the Internet on July 7, 2000, thereby ensuring the human genome would exist forever in the public domain. His research integrates mathematics, computer science, and molecular biology to develop new computer-based algorithms to interpret comparative and high-throughput genomics data to understand gene structure, function, and regulation. He built the UC Santa Cruz Cancer Genomics Hub database to hold NCI’s cancer genome data and is a co-founder and organizing member of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), a coalition of the top research, health care, and disease advocacy organizations that have taken the first steps to standardize and enable secure sharing of genomic and clinical data. Haussler received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

David Jackson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, MolecularHealth

David Jackson, Ph.D., is MolecularHealth’s Chief Scientific Officer. He blogs about both the science driving today’s revolution in cancer care and how MolecularHealth’s advanced bioinformatics technologies are helping make that revolution possible. Since joining MolecularHealth in April, 2007 Dr. Jackson has held responsibilities for the conception and design of the company’s innovative in silico approaches to precision medicine. Focusing on the development of technologies to predict patient-specific drug resistance, response and risk, he has led the discovery of several novel biomarkers. Prior to MolecularHealth, Dr. Jackson was head of in silico target finding at LION Bioscience, co-founder and director of in silico discovery at Xapien GmbH and group leader of bioinformatics at Cellzome AG. Dr. Jackson received his B.Sc. in Molecular Biology (First Class, Hons.) from University College London and his Ph.D. from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (awarded by the University of London).

Elli Kaplan, Co-founder & CEO, Neurotrack

Elli Kaplan, CEO, is the co-founder and CEO of Neurotrack. Her career spans two decades in the public and private sectors, at the White House, the State and Treasury Departments, and the United Nations Development Program. She has also held senior positions with AIG Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs and multiple startups. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and has an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Emily Conley, Ph.D., Director of Business Development, 23andMe

Emily Drabant Conley, Ph.D., is Director of Business Development at 23andMe, a Silicon Valley-based biotech company. 23andMe provides individuals with direct access to their genetic information and offers researchers a platform to accelerate clinical development and conduct patient-centric studies. She is responsible for leading business development efforts and building strategic relationships with pharmaceutical and biotech partners, forging research collaborations, and overseeing project execution across a range of therapeutic areas. Dr. Conley joined 23andMe in 2010 out of a desire to accelerate the pace of clinical research and personalized medicine. Prior to this role she spent 10 years conducting research that combined genetics and neuroimaging techniques to identify biological pathways that impact risk for neuropsychiatric disease. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University School of Medicine, where she held fellowships from the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense. Prior to that, she was a Research Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. with High Honors in Psychology and Business. Dr. Conley currently serves on the Advisory Board of the UCSF Alliance Health Project, which provides services to the LGBT and HIV-affected communities in San Francisco. She is a co-author on over 15 academic publications and was has been interviewed by NPR, FOX, ABC, and Fast Company among others.

Emily Leproust, Ph.D., CEO, Twist Bioscience

As an early pioneer in long DNA synthesis, Emily is poised to accelerate the biofactory market. She and co-founder Bill Peck share the world record for synthesizing the longest, highest quality oligo library. Emily architected the successful SureSelect product line which lowered the cost of sequencing and elucidated dozens of mendelian diseases, and she developed Agilent’s Oligo Library Synthesis technology. Emily has co-authored over 34 peer-reviewed papers—many on synthetic DNA—and has extensive marketing, management, and business development experience. Prior to Twist Bioscience, Emily was Director of Applications and Chemistry R&D—Genomics at Agilent Technologies.

Eran Eden, Ph.D., Co-founder and CEO, MeMed

Dr. Eden has been the CEO of MeMed since its inception in 2009, leading it through several financing rounds and rapid growth. He has 12 years of combined business and academic experience leading cutting-edge interdisciplinary technologies that synergize molecular biology and informatics. Dr. Eden holds a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering, B.A. in Biology, and M.Sc. in Computer Science (all Cum Laude) from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Systems Biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Dr. Eden is co-author of 8 patents and 13 peer-reviewed publications and is the recipient of multiple awards including the prestigious GE and Science Prize for Promising Life Scientists.

Eric Kool, Ph.D., Professor, Stanford University

Eric Kool received his PhD from Columbia and pursued his postdoctoral training at Caltech. After starting his academic career at the University of Rochester, he moved his laboratory to Stanford in 1999, where he is now the George and Hilda Daubert Professor of Chemistry. Kool’s research interests lie in the interdisciplinary fields of organic chemistry, chemical biology, and synthetic biology. His laboratory’s work is aimed at gaining basic understanding of interactions and mechanisms that enable RNA and DNA to function, and applying this understanding to the design and synthesis of new and useful molecules. He has received multiple national awards, including the American Chemical Society’s Cope Scholar Award, the Pfizer Award, and the Breslow Award for Biomimetic Chemistry. A popular teacher in organic chemistry and chemical biology at Stanford, he has twice received the Humanities & Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Eric Sasso, M.D., Vice President, Medical and Scientific Affairs, Crescendo Bioscience

Dr. Sasso joined Crescendo Bioscience in September 2012. He came to Crescendo from Abbott Laboratories, where as Medical Director, he worked in Early Immunology clinical development and in Humira Medical Affairs, both in Rheumatology and as head of the Dermatology team. Prior to joining Abbott in 2004, he was Associate Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he has remained an Adjunct Associate Professor since 2004. Dr. Sasso earned an A.B. Biochemistry degree at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and an M.D. degree from the University of California, San Diego. He trained in internal medicine at McGill University, Montreal, and did fellowships in rheumatology at the University of Washington, and in immunology research at the Virginia Mason Research Center, Seattle. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology and has published extensively in the fields of rheumatology, immunology and dermatology.

Euan Ashley, Ph.D., Director, Stanford Clinical Genomics Service

Born and raised in Scotland, Euan Angus Ashley graduated with 1st class Honors in Physiology and Medicine from the University of Glasgow. He completed medical residency and a PhD in molecular cardiology at the University of Oxford before moving to Stanford University where he trained in cardiology and advanced heart failure joining the faculty in 2006. His group is focused on the application of genomics to medicine. In 2010, he led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a human genome. The paper published in the Lancet was the focus of over 300 news stories, became one of the most cited articles in clinical medicine that year, and is currently featured in the Genome Exhibition at the Smithsonian in DC. The team extended the approach in 2011 to a family of four and now routinely apply genome sequencing to the diagnosis of patients at Stanford hospital where Dr Ashley directs the Clinical Genome Service and the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease. Dr Ashley is a recipient of the National Innovation Award from the American Heart Association (AHA) and a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award. He is a Principal Investigator of the Myocardial Applied Genomics Network (MAGnet), a member of the leadership group of the AHA Council on Functional Genomics, and a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health. He is a peer reviewer for the NIH and the AHA as well as journals including Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet and the Journal of Clinical Investigation,. He is co-founder of, and advisor to, Personalis, Inc, a Menlo Park based genetic diagnostics company.

Felix Frueh, Ph.D., CSO, Human Longevity

At Human Longevity (HLI), Frueh leads all genomic operations including non-clinical microbiome testing, high throughput, next generation genomic sequencing, and research collaborations and partnerships including the program with the University of California, San Diego/Moores Cancer Center. Prior to joining HLI Frueh was Executive Partner at Opus Three LLC, a life sciences consulting firm advising pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies on scientific, regulatory, and reimbursement strategies for medical products in the personalized health care space. He was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Third Rock Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital firm, where he provided scientific and strategic input for the formation of new and the advancement of existing portfolio companies. Before joining Third Rock, Frueh was President of the Medco Research Institute, leading Medco’s real-world, health economics and outcomes research-oriented initiatives and collaborations after having formed Medco’s personalized medicine research and development organization. Before joining Medco, Frueh was the first Associate Director for Genomics at the U.S. FDA, where he built and led the core genomics review team in CDER, and chaired the first FDA-wide, interdisciplinary pharmacogenomics review group (IPRG).

George Sledge, JR., M.D., Professor, Division Chief, Stanford University Medical Center

Dr. George W. Sledge, Jr. is Professor of Medicine and Pathology, and Ballve-Lantero Professor of Oncology (Endowed Chair) at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, Indiana. Trained in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology, he has devoted his professional career to understanding the biology and improving the treatment of breast cancer. He is co-Director of the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer Program, and is active as both a laboratory and clinical researcher, with more than 250 scientific publications. He served as chair of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group’s Breast Cancer Committee (2003-2010), as a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Oncology Drug Advisory Committee, and as a member of the Department of Defense’s Breast Cancer Research Program’s Integration Panel. He is past President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards for both the Komen for the Cure Foundation and the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation. He is the recipient of numerous scientific awards, including the Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s Jill Rose Award, the Komen Foundation’s Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction, and the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium’s William L. McGuire Award. His research interests have focused on novel biologic approaches to breast cancer therapy.

Howard Burris, M.D., CMO Executive Director, Drug Development Program, Sarah Cannon Research Inst.

Howard A. Burris, III, MD, is the Executive Director of Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute (SCRI), Nashville, TN. He is also a partner with Tennessee Oncology, PLLC. He received his undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, and earned his medical degree from the University of South Alabama, College of Medicine, Mobile, AL. He completed internship in Categorical Medicine, residency in Internal Medicine, and fellowship in Hematology/Medical Oncology at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX. While there, he served as Director of Clinical Research at the Institute for Drug Development of the Cancer Therapy and Research Center. Later, he joined SCRI and Tennessee Oncology to initiate now one of the world's largest and most widely publicized Investigational Drug Development Program. With over 20 years of Phase I clinical trial experience, his research interests focus on the development of investigational agents in oncology, particularly in breast cancer. In his current role as Chief Medical Officer for SCRI, he is responsible for the company’s clinical strategy and mission of advancing therapies for patients. He is a past member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Board of Directors and currently serves as member and Chair-Elect of the ASCO Nominating Committee. Additionally, he sits on the Board of Directors for SCRI, Tennessee Oncology, and the Minnie Pearl Foundation. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and is the Editor of The Oncology Report.

Ilan Kirsch, M.D., SVP, Translational Medicine, Adaptive Biotechnologies

Dr. Kirsch received his MD from Harvard University. He completed a 3-year post-doctoral fellowship in molecular genetics at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Subsequently Dr. Kirsch spent over 20 years at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), ultimately as Chief of the Genetics Branch within the Center for Cancer Research. Dr. Kirsch’s research has focused on cancer-specific genetic instability and cancer genetics. In 2005, Dr. Kirsch joined Amgen to head their Oncology Research group in Seattle. Since 2012, Dr. Kirsch has been an independent consultant focused on the development of antibody therapeutics and molecular diagnostics.

Ira Mellman, Ph.D., Vice President, Cancer Immunology, Genentech

Ira Mellman came to Genentech in the Spring of 2007 as Vice President of Research Oncology, after more than 20 years as a faculty member at the Yale University School of Medicine, where he was chair of his department (Cell Biology), a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, scientific director of the Yale Cancer Center, and Sterling Professor of Cell Biology and Immunobiology. Dr. Mellman has a BA from Oberlin College & Conservatory and a PhD in Genetics from Yale. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rockefeller University with Ralph Steinman, who received the Nobel Prize for the disocvery of dendritic cells. His laboratory is known not only for advances in fundamental cell biology particularly in the area of membrane traffic (including the discovery of “endosomes”) but also for applying these insights to understanding the cellular basis of the immune response, especially dendritic cell function. He was also the founder of CGI Pharma, which was recently purchased by Gilead. Ira ran all of oncology research at Genentech until the end of 2013 when he decided to concentrate his efforts on the rapidly developing area of cancer immunotherapy and became Vice President of Cancer Immunology. Ira is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the former Editor in Chief of the Journal of Cell Biology. He has also served on the editorial boards of Cell, the Journal of Experimental Medicine, EMBO Journal, among others. He also serves on the boards of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer, the American Society for Cell Biology, and the Cancer Research Institute. He remains a frustrated composer and songwriter, and has recorded two CDs in the little-known genre of “bio-rock”.

James M. Ford, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine and Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine

Dr. Ford’s overall research goals are to understand the role of genetic changes in cancer genes in the risk and development of solid tumors. The laboratory focuses on how DNA repair and DNA damage response pathways are critical to tumorigenesis and are potential candidates for targeted therapeutics and prevention. Dr. Ford also directs the Stanford Cancer Genetics Clinic. Dr. Ford has extensive experience in training and mentoring students, fellows and junior faculty members in biomedical sciences and translational research, and many former students and fellows have gone onto faculty positions at prestigious academic centers. He is the Director of the Stanford Oncology Fellowship Training Program and PI of an NCI-supported T32 training grant. In summary, Dr. Ford has a demonstrated record of successful laboratory and translational clinical research, and a track record of mentoring physician-investigators into independent academic careers.

Jay G. Wohlgemuth, M.D., SVP, Medical, Science and Innovation, Quest Diagnostics

Dr. Wohlgemuth leads all new test development efforts and is responsible for all science and innovation throughout the company and is responsible for Medical Affairs and has a functional reporting responsibility for Medical Quality. Prior to joining Quest Diagnostics in 2009, Dr. Wohlgemuth was Director, Clinical Diagnostics, ITGR (Immunology, Tissue Growth and Repair) and Global Development Team Leader for Ocrulizumab for Genentech. He also served as Vice President, Research and Development for VIA Pharmaceuticals and as Chief Medical Officer for the molecular diagnostics company XDx, a company he co-founded. Dr. Wohlgemuth also served as Vice President, Research & Development for XDx. For his work at XDx he was awarded Technology Pioneer 2005 at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Dr. Wohlgemuth serves as a board member of the Personalized Medicine Coalition, an organization devoted to educating about personalized medicine and promoting new ways of thinking about healthcare. Dr. Wohlgemuth earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Harvard College and his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine, where he also served a fellowship in cardiovascular medicine.

Jennifer Van Eyk, Ph.D., Professor, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Dr. Van Eyk is a Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Director of the Basic Science Research in the Barbara Streisand Woman’s Health Center and Director of the new Advance Clinical Biosystems Institute where she recently moved from Johns Hopkins University. She remains the director of the prestigious NHLBI Proteomic Innovation Center on Heart Failure, the proteomics contract from the NHLBI awarded to her group while she was at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Van Eyk is an international leader in the area of proteomics and her lab has focused the developing technical pipelines for de novo discovery and larger scale quantitative MS methods. This includes multiple reaction monitoring (MRM, also known as SRM) and most recently SWATH.

Joe V. Selby, M.D., MPH, Executive Director, PCORI

A family physician, clinical epidemiologist, and health services researcher, Dr. Selby has more than 35 years of experience in patient care, research, and administration. He is responsible for identifying strategic issues and opportunities for PCORI and implementing and administering programs authorized by the PCORI Board of Governors. Dr. Selby joined PCORI from Kaiser Permanente, Northern California, where he was Director of the Division of Research for 13 years and oversaw a department of more than 50 investigators and 500 research staff members working on more than 250 ongoing studies. He was with Kaiser Permanente for 27 years. An accomplished researcher, Dr. Selby has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and continues to conduct research, primarily in the areas of diabetes outcomes and quality improvement. His publications cover a spectrum of topics, including effectiveness studies of colorectal cancer screening strategies; treatment effectiveness, population management, and disparities in diabetes mellitus; primary care delivery; and quality measurement. Dr. Selby was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine in 2009 and was a member of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality study section for Health Care Quality and Effectiveness from 1999 to 2003. A native of Fulton, Missouri, Dr. Selby received his MD from Northwestern University and his MPH from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a commissioned officer in the Public Health Service Corps from 1976 to 1983 and received the Commissioned Officer’s Award in 1981.

Jonas Korlach, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Pacific Biosciences

Dr. Korlach was appointed Chief Scientific Officer at Pacific Biosciences in July, 2012. He was previously Scientific Fellow, supporting commercial development of the PacBio® RS system and performing research aimed at developing new applications for Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT®) technologies, such as DNA base modification detection. He co-invented the SMRT technology with Stephen Turner, Ph.D., Pacific Biosciences Founder and Chief Technology Officer, when the two were graduate students at Cornell University. Dr. Korlach joined Pacific Biosciences as the company's eighth employee in 2004. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Cornell University. Dr. Korlach is the recipient of multiple grants, an inventor on 28 issued U.S. patents, and an author of numerous scientific studies on the principles and applications of SMRT technology, including publications in Nature, Science, and PNAS. He received both his Ph.D. and his M.S. degrees in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology from Cornell, and received M.S. and B.A. degrees in Biological Sciences from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.

Laura Housman, MPH, MBA, Senior Vice President, Molecular Health

Ms. Housman is responsible for the commercialization of Molecular Health’s suite of treatment decision support tools for enhanced oncology clinical care. By using advanced proprietary information technologies to sift through terabytes of genetic and molecular test findings in a fraction of the time needed for current manual analysis, MolecularHealth provides doctors and patients with faster, more accurate insights into the role genes play in the progression and treatment of an individual’s cancer. Ms. Housman holds a Master of Business Administration with honors from Boston University Graduate School of Management, a Master of Public Health with specialization in Health Services from Boston University School of Public Health, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with a minor in Business Administration from Boston University College of Arts and Sciences. Additionally, Ms. Housman is on the Faculty of Tufts School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts.

Lawrence Lesko, Ph.D., F.C.P. Professor, Director Center for Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology, UF

Lawrence J. Lesko, Ph.D., F.C.P. has been leading UF’s new Center for Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology in the interdisciplinary Institute of Therapeutic Innovation at the UF Research and Academic Center in Lake Nona (Orlando) since July 2011. Before joining UF, Dr. Lesko worked nearly 20 years in the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research as the Director of the Office of Clinical Pharmacology. He was also Chair of the Clinical Pharmacology Coordinating Subcommittee of the FDA’s Medical Policy Coordinating Committee and authored or co-authored numerous Guidance for Industry, and started the FDA’s Voluntary Genomics Data Submission Program and Mechanistic Drug Safety Program. Lesko has published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is a frequent invited national and international speaker in clinical pharmacology, personalized medicine, pharmacometrics and systems pharmacology. His research interests include drug development and regulatory science, quantitative clinical pharmacology and pharmacogenomics. In 2011, Lesko received the Gary Neil Prize for Innovation in Drug Development from the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT). He also received the Coriell Scientific Leadership Award for Personalized Medicine (2010), the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine award from ASCPT (2007), the University of North Carolina Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy Award for Clinical Service (2007), and the Nathanial B. Kwit Distinguished Service Award for Clinical Pharmacology from the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (2007). Lesko served as President of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology in 2004-2006. He is a Fellow in the Japanese Society for the Study of Xenobiotics, American College of Clinical Pharmacology and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He is Board Certified in Clinical Pharmacology and a registered pharmacist.

Lincoln Nadauld, M.D., Director of Cancer Genomics, Intermountain Healthcare

Dr. Lincoln Nadauld, MD/PhD, was most recently hired to head the new cancer genomics department at Intermountain Healthcare’s first in-house cancer genomic program. Dr. Nadauld attended Brigham Young University for his undergraduate degree and went on to complete medical and doctoral degrees (MD/PhD) followed by internship and residency at the University of Utah. His doctoral dissertation focused on the molecular genetics of colon cancer. He completed a fellowship in medical oncology at Stanford University where he remained as faculty at the Stanford School of Medicine focusing on cancer genomics and personalized cancer medicine. While at Stanford, he helped to develop technologies that identify DNA changes in cancer to predict whether or not a targeted cancer drug might be effective for a specific patient. Last year Dr. Nadauld was awarded the prestigious Young Investigator Award by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Career Development Award of the National Cancer Institute.

Mara G. Aspinall, President and CEO, Health Catalysts

Mara Aspinall is a healthcare industry leader. Aspinall is the former President and CEO of Ventana Medical Systems. Ventana, member of Roche Group, is worldwide leader in development, manufacturing and commercialization of tissue-based cancer diagnostics. During her tenure, Ventana substantially grew revenue, profit and market share and became the world’s leading oncology companion diagnostics developer and manufacturer. Previously, Aspinall spent 12 years with Genzyme Corporation where she was President of Genzyme Genetics and of Genzyme Pharmaceuticals. Aspinall was also Founder, CEO and Director of On-Q-ity, a company focused on improvedcancer diagnostics through circulating tumor cells. Aspinall has spearheaded initiatives to educate policymakers about genomics and personalized medicine. She recently co-founded the International School of Biomedical Diagnostics at Arizona State University and Dublin City University, first school dedicated to Diagnostics as an independent discipline. Aspinallalso founded DxInsights and EPEMED - European Personalized Medicine Association.Aspinall is Director of Safeguard Scientific (NYSE:SFE) public company providing growth capital for innovative healthcare and technology companies. She was formerly Director of BCBS Massachusetts, Dana Farber andHHS Secretary’s Advisory Council on Genetics under Obama and Bush. Aspinall has written several articles and case studiesand named one of “100 Most Inspiring People in Life Sciences” by PharmaVOICE.

Michael Rowbotham, M.D., Ca Pacific Medical Center Institute Senior Scientific Director, Sutter Health

Dr. Rowbotham’s research has greatly influenced how chronic pain is managed; from concept to FDA approval of topical local anesthetics for the neuropathic pain of post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN), the initial trial of gabapentin for PHN, and the first controlled clinical trials of opioids for neuropathic pain. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications. In collaboration with CPMCRI scientist Dr. Karin Petersen, current research efforts focus on the mechanisms, natural history, and management of chronic neuropathic pain, clinical trial design, opioid analgesic tolerance, and incorporation of human experimental pain models into testing of new analgesic agents. Other key initiatives in the Rowbotham lab are aimed at linking CPMCRI investigators with primary care physicians and specialists throughout Sutter Health to understand how pain is currently managed, and to test strategies that will reduce the risk of addiction and overdose when opioids are used to treat chronic pain.

Michael Vidne, Ph.D., Director of Business Development, NovellusDx

Dr. Vidne joined NovellusDx in June 2013 bringing with him experience in both management and mathematical analysis. Prior to joining NovellusDx, Dr. Vidne was a consultant with McKinsey & Co. in the West Cost Office serving mainly the high-tech and semiconductor industries. Michael received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Columbia University in 2011, where he employed machine learning and statistical methods to research the mammalian visual system and neuron populations.

Nathan Caffo, President, Presage Biosciences

Mr. Caffo is a life sciences professional whose 19-year industry career has been focused on personalized medicine and applications of genomic technology. Before joining Presage as its first full-time employee, he consulted for a UK-based diagnostic company, Curidium Medica, and led the efforts to identify an acquirer for that business. Mr. Caffo also led drug in-licensing at Perlegen Sciences, a genomic medicine spin-off of Affymetrix. Prior to that, he worked at Applied Biosystems (now Life Technologies) and its sister company Celera (now Quest Diagnostics) for 11 years in a number of technical and business roles, including managing the company’s genomics service business. Mr. Caffo has a B.S. in Microbiology from Pennsylvania State University.

Neil Barth, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Agendia

Dr. Neil Barth is the Chief Medical Officer of Agendia Inc. and Agendia NV. He is a highly skilled physician with nearly 35 collective years of experience as a pioneer in autologous stem cell transplantation, immunotherapy, and genetic biomarker development. Dr. Barth has 11-year tenure on the MEC, 6 years as Chief of Staff, and 2 years as Executive Medical Director for Hoag Hospital. Dr. Barth has authored multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and abstracts and is a noted speaker, facilitator, moderator and presenter. Dr. Barth is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology. He completed his Doctor of Medicine at the Medical College of Ohio and Residency and Fellowship at Harbor UCLA Medical Center.

Patrice Milos, Ph.D., President and CEO, Claritas Genomics

Dr. Milos, a pioneer at the interface of genomics and medicine, joined Claritas Genomics - a newly formed spin-out from Boston Children’s Hospital, to realize the power of combining next-generation DNA sequencing technology with the clinical expertise of the world’s best pediatric specialists to inform and improve patient care. Previously, Patrice served as the Boston Site Head for Pfizer’s Centers of Therapeutic Innovation and Precision Medicine Lead, establishing academic medical center partnerships to establish proof of mechanism for novel targets and pathways aiming to treat human disease. Dr. Milos also served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer for Helicos BioSciences, Cambridge, MA. Her expertise and extensive knowledge in the life sciences helped advance the company’s efforts to develop and apply innovative and breakthrough single molecule DNA and RNA sequencing technology with a hfocus on molecular diagnostics. Patrice previously served as Executive Director for Pfizer Global Research and Development with responsibilities for leadership of pharmacogenomics, proteomics, metabonomics, DNA sequencing, RNA profiling, and translational biomarkers applied across the Pfizer portfolio from early discovery into the marketplace. Dr. Milos serves on the Boston Children’s Hospital Technology Advisory Board, is an active NIH grant reviewer and has served on the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research. She also sits on several journal editorial boards and has published and presented extensively in genomic sciences. Dr. Milos conducted post-doctoral fellowships at Brown University and Harvard University. She earned her MS and PhD degrees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

Rachid Karam, M.D., Ph.D., Variant Assessment Specialist, Ambry Genetics

Dr. Karam received his medical degree from the Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), Brazil, and conducted his Ph.D. studies in Oncogenetics at the University of Porto, Portugal. During his Ph.D., Dr. Karam identified RNA surveillance as a putative therapeutic target to treat/prevent Gastric Cancer in patients with germline mutations in the CDH1 gene. Dr. Karam completed his postdoctoral training in Molecular Biology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, where he studied, among other things, the genetics of Pancreatic Cancer. At Ambry Genetic s, Dr. Karam is part of a multi-disciplinary medical team, and as a Cancer Variant Assessment Specialist he participates in the analysis of diagnostic molecular genomic test results. He is the author of several scientific articles in leading journals, including Nature Medicine, Molecular Cell, and Oncogene.

Rami Käkönen, President, MediSapiens (US) Inc.

Rami Kakonen has been involved in biopharmaceutical industry and research for nearly two decades. Before joining MediSapiens, he has been an entrepreneur, a researcher and for the last decade a Business Development professional. Currently the President of MediSapiens Inc, he is in charge of the US operations of MediSapiens, a bioinformatics company specializing in software solutions for biomedical research and personalized medicine.

Rebecca Blanchard, Ph.D., Executive Director, Oncology Project Leadership, Merck & Co., Inc.

Rebecca Blanchard is the head of Clinical Pharmacogenomics within the Genetics and Pharmacogenomics department at Merck & Co., Inc. Dr. Blanchard’s career in academia and at Merck has spanned preclinical, translational, and clinical development across multiple therapeutic areas. Rebecca’s education includes a B.S. in Pharmacy from Albany College of Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. After receiving her Ph.D., Rebecca completed postdoctoral studies at the Mayo Clinic with a focus on human pharmacogenetics. From 1998 through 2004 Rebecca was an Assistant Professor at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia where she continued to investigate human pharmacogenetics with emphasis on human sulfotransferase and UDP-glucuronosyltransferase genes. Her research at Fox Chase also focused on pharmacogenomics as related to anticancer therapies. In 2005, Rebecca joined the Merck & Co., Inc. in Pennsylvania. She has held positions of increasing responsibility across several departments within the organization since her arrival. Rebecca has led several Drug Development teams across early and late stage development, with a recent focus on identification of predictive biomarkers for drug response. In 2013 Rebecca accepted the position as Head of Clinical Pharmacogenomics, where she is responsible for the scientific strategy and execution of Merck’s Clinical Pharmacogenomic efforts.

Richard Weinshilboum, M.D., Prof. Pharmacology Molec. & Experimental Rx & Med., Mayo Clinic

Dr. Richard M. Weinshilboum is Professor of Molecular Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics and Internal Medicine and the Mary Lou and John H. Dasburg Professor in Cancer Genomics Research at Mayo Clinic. He also directs the Pharmacogenomics Program of the Mayo Center for Individualized Medicine and is Co-Principal Investigator of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pharmacogenomics Research Network Center at the Mayo Clinic. Dr. Weinshilboum’s research has focused on pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics, where he has authored over 380 scientific manuscripts addressing these topics. His research has increasingly applied genome-wide pharmacogenomic techniques to study the therapy of breast cancer rather than candidate gene or candidate pathway-based approaches. Dr. Weinshilboum has been the recipient of many awards and honors including an Established Investigatorship of the American Heart Association, a Burroughs Wellcome Scholar in Clinical Pharmacology Award, the Oscar B. Hunter Award of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the Harry Gold Award of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the Catecholamine Club Julius Axelrod medal, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration William B. Abrams Lectureship Award, the Edvard Poulsson Award from the Norwegian Pharmacology Society, Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award from Kansas University Medical Center, and Mayo Distinguished Alumni Award. He has served on the Advisory Councils for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). He received B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Kansas, followed by residency training in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and has served as a Pharmacology Research Associate at the NIH laboratory of Nobel Laureate Dr. Julius Axelrod.

Risa Stack, Ph.D., General Manager, GE Ventures, New Business Creation

Risa leads the GE Ventures, New Business Creation which develops and invests in new opportunities in healthcare and energy. Risa joined the GE Ventures team from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where she was a partner. Prior to KPCB, Risa was a Principal at J.P. Morgan Partners. Throughout her VC Career, Risa has invested in over a dozen companies such as Veracyte (NASDAQ:VCYT), Trius (acquired by Cubist), Corthera (acquired by Novartis), Ilex Oncology (acquired by Genzyme), and Triangle Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead). Risa was also the founding CEO and a board member of several precision medicine companies, including CardioDx and Nodality. Before joining the venture capital industry, Risa worked as a derivative specialist on the Chicago Board of Trade, where she traded futures and options on government securities. Risa is a member of the steering committee for the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine and on the advisory board of the Personalized Medicine Conference. She was also named as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Business by the San Francisco Business Times. Risa holds a degree in genetics and development with distinction from the University of Illinois, a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Chicago, and was a member of the second class of Kauffman Fellows. Risa is an avid athlete; she is currently playing basketball and a regular at bootcamp.

Robert Gerszten, M.D., Director, Clinical and Translational Research, MGH Heart Center

Dr. Robert Gerszten is Director of Translational Research in the Cardiology Division at the Massachusetts General Hospital, with a joint appointment in the MGH Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases. Dr. Gerszten is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He is also a Senior Associate at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Dr. Gerszten received his medical education at Johns Hopkins University and completed his cardiovascular clinical and research training at the University of California, San Francisco and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Sean Scott, VP & GM, Clinical Genomics, QIAGEN Bioinformatics

Sean Scott is the VP and GM, Clinical Genomics for QIAGEN. Sean is responsible for QIAGEN’s Clinical Genomics product portfolio offering serving the needs of molecular diagnostics and molecular pathology testing laboratories related to NGS-based genetic test interpretation and reporting across germline and somatic test indications. Sean recently led the development of QIAGEN new Ingenuity Clinical Decision Support platform, an instrument platform, assay and pipeline agnostic solution, that enables clinical labs to scale annotation, interpretation and reporting of their screening, diagnostic and monitoring test offerings. Sean joined QIAGEN in 2013 through QIAGEN’s acquisition of Ingenuity Systems where He prior to QIAGEN spent six years as SVP, Global Commercial Operations and SVP, Corporate Development for Ingenuity Systems.

Thomas Brown, M.D., Executive Director, Swedish Cancer Institute

Prior to coming to Swedish, Dr. Brown served as Professor of Medicine and Chief Operating Officer of the University of Arizona Cancer Center. He served on the faculty of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for a decade, to include: as a professor in gastrointestinal oncology; deputy head and head ad interim of the Division of Cancer Medicine; and Vice President for extramural programs and international business. While on the faculty at Duke University, as associate professor of medicine, he led development of the multi-disciplinary GI cancer program and a regional, community-based clinical trial consortium. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from The Johns Hopkins University, and an MBA from Rice University. A graduate of the Medical College of Virginia, Dr. Brown completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Florida and a fellowship in medical oncology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Brown’s clinical practice and research focus has been on therapeutic development in gastrointestinal malignancies. His professional and academic interests include health-care administration and policy, as well as international health-care delivery systems. Dr. Brown has served on numerous institutional, national and international committees and boards.

Title: A Review of Semiconductor Devices for PoC Diagnostics

Alastair Malcolm, CEO & President, Applied Microarrays

Alastair Malcolm is the founder and CEO of Applied Microarrays “AMI”. Previously Alastair led molecular diagnostic operations for GE Healthcare, Amersham Biosciences and Motorola Biochip Systems. Educated in Physics at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, he led Motorola’s global semiconductor operations prior to moving into microarray technology in 1999.

Title: Illumina Accelerator: Launching Genomics Startups

Amanda Cashin, Ph.D., Head of Illumina Accelerator

Amanda Cashin, Ph.D. is Head of the Illumina Accelerator and is helping launch the vehicle in San Francisco, California. Illumina Accelerator is the world’s first business accelerator focused solely on creating an innovation ecosystem for the genomics industry. Previously, Amanda was Senior Vice President of Life Science at Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc./Alexandria Venture Investments. In her role, she helped lead Alexandria Venture Investments, which invests in breakthrough life science and technology companies and leading venture capital funds. Amanda also led a team of life science professionals with strong science and business expertise responsible for industry research, company analysis, and business development activities to help position Alexandria at the forefront of the industry. She earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Biology from the California Institute of Technology and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor's degree in Physical Organic Chemistry from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her scientific expertise and peer-reviewed publications are in the fields of biochemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, pharmacology, electrophysiology, and neuroscience.

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Andrew Barry, Director of Product Development, The Broad Institute

Andrew Barry is the Director of Product Development for the Broad Institute Genomics Platform. With a background in biology and biomedical engineering, Andrew spent 9 years working for the Broad Institute, developing technologies for the implementation and scale-up of next generation sequencing, before leaving to work in the industrial sector. Working for Caliper Life Sciences (later acquired by PerkinElmer) he held various positions in product management, strategic marketing, and biology R&D before re-joining the Broad Institute in 2014. In his current role, Andrew is responsible for bringing the Broad Institute’s genomics capabilities to the scientific community in the form of Broad Genomic Services.

Title:

Andrew Kurtz, Ph.D., Program Director, Small Business Innovation Research Development Center, NCI

Dr. Kurtz has been a Program Director in the Small Business Innovation Research Development Center at the National Cancer Institute. His management portfolio includes projects focused on early-stage cancer drug development, including small molecules, biologics, and novel multifunctional therapeutics based on nanotechnology. Previously, Dr. Kurtz was an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the NIH, during which time he served on the management team of The Cancer Genome Atlas Pilot Project. Dr. Kurtz received a PhD in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

Title: Security & Compliance of Genomic Data in the Cloud

Angel Pizarro, Technical Business Development Manager, Amazon Web Services

Angel Pizarro is a Technical Business Development Manager on the Scientific and Research Computing team at Amazon Web Services. He has a broad background in bioinformatics and high-throughput scientific computing, both from a research and development standpoint, and as a operations and service provider of computational resources for biomedical research scientists.

Title:

Berta Strulovici, Ph.D., Director, Israel National Center for Personalized Medicine

Berta Strulovici received her Ph.D from The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. She then conducted postdoctoral research under the guidance of Professor Robert J. Lefkowitz at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Duke University Medical School in Durham, NC, USA. Berta has a track record in building and leading outstanding, productive teams, while integrating innovative processes into seamless, successful enterprises in start-up and large Pharma environments. At Merck Sharpe and Dohme in North Wales, PA, Berta was Vice President of Basic Research in charge of building a state-of-the-art Center of Excellence for early drug discovery for Merck Worldwide. She was involved in the discovery of lead compounds that are currently in clinical trials for various diseases. About 3 years ago, Berta joined a new start up biotech, iPierian, in the Bay Area as Founding Chief Technology Officer. At iPierian, she focused the company on applying induced Pluripotent Stem Cell technology to drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases. Most recently, Berta undertook a new role as Director of the National Center for Personalized Medicine in Israel, located at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The Center will be applying novel technologies in genomics, proteomics and High Throughput Screening to enable and advance Personalized Medicine in Israel.

Title: What Virtualization of The Laboratory Could Mean for The Future of Medicinal Research

Brian M. Frezza, Ph.D., Co-CEO, Emerald Therapeutics

Brian M. Frezza is Co-founder and Co-CEO of Emerald Therapeutics, where he spearheads Emerald’s therapeutic research effort and is lead architect of the the Emerald Cloud Lab (ECL), a remote controlled life science laboratory. Brian completed his PhD in Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) working on DNA nanotechnology under committee mentorship of Feynman award-winning chemists M. Reza Ghadiri and Nadrian Seeman. Brian is a Hollerith and Wolfram Innovator award-winner who has received over a hundred combined citations for published articles in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) and Chemical Physics. He has also served as a peer reviewer for both JACS and Langmuir, and guest-lectured at Carnegie Mellon University, TSRI, and Stanford University.

Title: The Emerging Field of Genetics and Personalized Medicine

Brian Meshkin, Founder and President, Proove Biosciences

Brian brings almost 20 years of experience in pharmaceuticals and molecular diagnostics, with a focus on personalized medicine. Proove is his second genetics based company. His first, Salugen, focused on nutritional genetics. He worked in pharmacogenetics at Prometheus Laboratories, led eBusiness at Johnson & Johnson, and developed corporate venture capital at Eli Lilly & Company. A published author on over 15 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Brian brings a passion for research and patient quality of life to the Company. He has served on numerous charitable boards such as the American Red Cross and as an elected member of the Board of the Education of Howard County, Maryland. Brian's efforts have been featured in numerous publications including Fortune and Wired magazines, The Washington Post, and The Baltimore Sun chose him as one of Maryland's “Earthly Angels.” Brian was also selected by the Maryland Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as one of Howard County's “Finest Under 39.” He received the 2010 “Celebrating Successes for Children Award” by his local county government. Brian has also won the SmartCEO magazine Future50 Award each of the last two years, and was featured in an article on the “Powers to Be” in Biotechnology by San Diego Magazine.

Title: Strategic Partnering Delivering the Future of Personalized Medicine

Cecilia Schott, Ph.D., MBA Head Personalized Healthcare, Corporate Development & Ventures at AstraZeneca

Cecilia and her team are responsible for identifying, evaluating, facilitating and establishing external collaborations supporting personalized healthcare strategies alongside AstraZeneca’s small and large molecules portfolio. Prior to her current role in Business Development Cecilia held positions in AstraZeneca’s Global Marketing and US Medical Affairs. Her background includes direct patient care as a clinical pharmacist; and she also has held various roles in the biotech and device industries including clinical research, drug safety and medical publications. Cecilia holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, Boston; a BS in Pharmacy from University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and a MBA from Babson College.

Title: Tutorial: Finding the Right Clinical Positioning on Your Doagnostic

Charles Mathews, Vice President, Boston Healthcare

Mr. Mathews has worked on a variety of reimbursement projects identifying public and private payer coverage channels, coding options, and pricing and payment possibilities for drugs, diagnostics, and medical devices. His specific area of expertise is in diagnostics, with a focus on value-based pricing for laboratory tests and molecular diagnostics, as well as with global companion diagnostic launch strategies. His experience further includes work with test and platform developers and laboratories, novel medical/surgical devices, drug/diagnostic combinations, and pharmaceutical product launches. Mr. Mathews’ prior experience includes working on health policy as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill. He has also worked for the government affairs office of Genentech and has participated in a National Institutes of Health sponsored clinical trial which focused on genetic testing for Alzheimer’s disease. Mr. Mathews has a master’s degree in public policy from Duke University and completed his undergraduate work at Colgate University.

Title: Integrated Diagnostics Overview

Doug Fisher, M.D., Senior VP, Corporate Development, Indi

Dr. Doug Fisher serves with Indi in a dual capacity. In addition to leading the company’s corporate development efforts, he is a partner at one of Indi’s founding investors: InterWest Partners. Dr. Fisher joined InterWest's healthcare team in 2009, focusing on biopharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device investments. He is a board member of Gynesonics, Indi Molecular, Obalon Therapeutics, PMV Pharma, QuatRx, Sera Prognostics and USDS. Indi Molecular was spun-out from its parent company Indi (Integrated Diagnostics) in 2013. Dr. Fisher is also actively involved in InterWest's investments in Indi and Invuity. Dr. Fisher an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an M.B.A. from Wharton where he graduated with honors as a Siebel Scholar and Palmer Scholar.

Title: Eradicating Viral Diseases Using 21st Century Technology

Eugene Seymour, M.D., MPH, CEO, NanoViricides

Following postgraduate medical training, Dr. Seymour obtained a Master's degree in the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at UCLA. He began clinical practice Los Angeles/Beverly Hills in Internal Medicine and joined the UCLA Medical School faculty. In late 1981, he began treating patients with a strange new disease that turned out to be HIV/AIDS. In 1986, he was requested by the US government to run a large-scale surveillance program for HIV prevalence in the Hispanic population in Los Angeles. His laboratory ended up testing over 50,000 people. He then started a company in 1989 to develop a rapid testing platform in order to detect HIV 1/2 and listed the company on NASDAQ in 1993. Under his direction, the company conducted research studies in Africa, Asia, South and North America and developed a product now approved in the US and other countries. He then started a non-profit foundation that funded both testing and training programs for health workers in Asia and Africa. He then became a consultant to the UN Global Program on AIDS and was sent to a number of different countries, (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia) to interact with local physicians and assist them in setting up testing programs. He served in the Medical Corps of US Army Reserve during the Vietnam era. In 2005, he joined Dr. Anil Diwan and co-founded NanoViricides, a nanotechnology company that has created a platform technology that enables rapid development of “nanomachines” designed to destroy viruses in and on the body.

Title: DEPArray Utility in Recovery of Pure Cell Pop. from Complex Tissues

Farideh Z. Bischoff, Ph.D., Executive Director, Scientific Affairs, Silicon Biosystems

Dr. Bischoff received her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from University of Texas Graduated School for Biomedical Sciences (Houston, TX) followed by postdoctoral training at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. She completed the human molecular genetics and cytogenetic fellowship program prior to joining as full-time faculty member in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine. She is an expert in clinical and molecular human cytogenetics and is well known in the fields of rare fetal and tumor cell recovery from peripheral blood for non-invasive molecular diagnosis. She has published extensively and demonstrated expertise in clinical study designs and commercial assay development within the fields of prenatal, oncology, infertility and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. She is currently Executive Director, Scientific Affairs at Silicon Biosystems, Inc.

Title: PGx: Out of the Literature & into the Clinic

Heather Fehling, Ph.D., HCLD, Executive Director of Molecular Diagnostics, Clinical Reference Laboratory

Dr. Heather Fehling joined CRL in 2008 and supports CRL’s new business development initiatives which include Molecular Diagnostics. Dr. Fehling brings extensive experience in both laboratory management and business development. Her most recent experience was as Executive Director of the Genomics Laboratory at Children’s Mercy Hospital and Clinics. In addition to managing the laboratory, she conducted research centered on genomics technologies for diagnosis of patients with chromosomal abnormalities. Prior to that, she managed the molecular biology and microarray facilities at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.

Title: Targeted Drug Development of Novel Anti-EphA3-Antibody (KB004)

Heike Krupka, Ph.D., PMP, Director for Clinical Development, Oncology, KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Dr. Heike Krupka is in charge of the KaloBios Oncology pipeline, leading the clinical and pre-clinical development strategy and execution for Kalobios’ Humaneered® antibody programs, currently in Phase I/II clinical trials. Over her career, she has successfully taken targeted therapies from discovery through clinical development to market. In her previous work at Genentech, she served as a Medical Science Director for vemurafenib (Zelboraf®), cobimetinib and vismodegib (Erivedge®). At Genentech, she also successfully led cross-functional development teams for numerous molecules, e.g. obinotuzumab (Gazyva), polatuzumab vedotin (in Ph II) and etrolizumab (in Ph III). Heike also worked on the personalized immunotherapy MyVax® at Genitope. As a Senior Scientist at Plexxikon, she led Oncology and Immunology programs discovering targeted drug development candidates like vemurafenib (Zelboraf®). She holds a MSc in Chemistry from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, a PhD in Biochemistry from the Max-Planck-Institute and the Technical University of Munich as well as a Project Management Professional certification from PMI.

Title: The Cancer Research UK Stratified Medicine Programme: National Screening to National Trials

Ian Walker, PhD., MBA., Director of Strategic Partnerships, Cancer Research UK

Ian was appointed as the Cancer Research UK Director of Strategic Partnerships in September 2013 having previously lead the ECMC Combinations Alliance. Ian has worked with Cancer Research UK for over 7 years and is a core member of the Strategy and Research Funding Leadership Team. He is also Head of the CRUK Stratified Medicine programme andChair of the CRUK Stratified Medicine Governance Board. Ian is an invited member of the Technology Strategy Board SMIP working group and the ABPI Pharmaceutical Oncology Initiative, as well as sitting on numerous working groups and committees inthe NHS and abroad. Starting his career in the private sector, Ian initially worked on developing novel biological therapeutics, including antibodies and vaccines. Ian holds a Biochemistry B.Sc with honours and aPhDfrom the University of Leeds. He also holds an MBA with distinction from Warwick Business School.

Title: Functional Solid Tumor Profiling for Targeted Drug Development

Jerry Parrott, President and CEO, BioMarker Strategies, LLC

Mr. Jerry Parrott Jerry Parrott is President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of BioMarker Strategies. Mr. Parrott previously served Human Genome Sciences as Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Public Policy from 2001 until the acquisition of HGS by GlaxoSmithKline in 2012. He formerly held senior public policy, corporate affairs, and other positions with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, American Hospital Supply Corporation and Walgreen Company. As Principal of Policy Advocates Inc. from 1995-2001, Mr. Parrott’s clients included HGS, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ciba-Geigy, Diversa, Genentech, HealthCare Ventures, Hoffmann-La Roche, Western Digital, Wyeth and others. During this period, he helped take public 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals, subsequently acquired by Johnson & Johnson, and InforMax, subsequently acquired by Invitrogen. He has helped launch important therapeutic products in immunology, oncology, infectious disease and pain relief, and has helped bring two prescription products over the counter. Since 2006, Mr. Parrott has served as Chairman and President of Maryland Health Care Product Development Corporation, a nonprofit venture capital fund committed to helping health care products companies grow and succeed in Maryland. He is a Director of Noxilizer Inc., MdBio, and the Tech Council of Maryland, and Senior Advisor to the Maryland Life Sciences Advisory Board. He formerly served as Chair of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Committee on Outreach and Alliance Development, Chair of the Rx Partners health care reform coalition, Founding Director of BioHealth Innovation, Founding Trustee of the Foundation for Genetic Medicine, and Trustee of the Committee for Economic Development.

Title:

John S. Witte, Ph.D., Associate Director, UCSF Institute for Human Genetics

Dr. Witte is Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the Head of the Division of Genetic and Cancer Epidemiology, Associate Director of the Institute for Human Genetics, and Leader of the Cancer Genetics Program. He is an internationally recognized expert in statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology. His research program encompasses a synthesis of methodological and applied genetic epidemiology, with the overall aim of deciphering the mechanisms underlying complex diseases and traits. He has developed extensive, widely-used methods and software for studying rare genetic variants, pathways, interactions, and genome-wide association studies. He is applying these methods to studies of cancer (e.g., of the prostate), birth defects, and pharmacogenomics. Current projects in his lab include developing Bayesian methods for effectively evaluating pleiotropy, determining the germline and somatic basis of prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness, and detecting genes that impact drug / treatment response. He obtained a BS in Math, MS in Engineering and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California. He then did a post-doc in Biostatistics, and was a tenured faculty in Genetic Epidemiology at Case Western Reserve University before moving to UCSF. His research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Urologic Research Foundation, and the Benioff-Goldberg Program in Prostate Cancer Translational Biology.

Title: How Do You Measure Up? Clinical Standards for NGS

Kara Norman, Ph.D., Research and Development Leader, Quality Controls, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Dr. Kara Norman is the R&D Lead at AcroMetrix, a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, where her team develops quality controls, reference standards, and QC software across oncology/NGS, infectious diseases, and serology. In her previous work, Kara completed her doctoral studies at the University of Calgary, Canada, in molecular oncology and virology. There, she helped pioneer development of the novel virus-based anti-cancer therapy, REOLYSIN, which is now in late stage clinical testing with Oncolytics Biotech. Kara then moved to Stanford University for her postdoctoral research, where she led studies in microRNA next generation sequencing and determined key molecular off-target effects of the anti-Hepatitis C virus therapy, antisense miR-122 (now in Phase II trials).

Title:

Marc LePage, President and CEO, Génome Québec

Marc LePage was appointed President and CEO of Génome Québec in December 2011. He brings to the organization a wealth of experience in the innovation sector and venture capital, in addition to a broad network of international contacts. One of his major mandates as President and CEO is to reach new agreements in a bid to diversify sources of funding. He is an expert in international partnerships and, since 2009, served as Special Advisor, Climate Change and Energy for the Embassy of Canada in Washington, D.C. He previously worked as Consul General at the Canadian Consulate in San Francisco/Silicon Valley. Marc LePage was also one of the pioneers behind the founding of Genome Canada in 2000. During his tenure as Executive Vice-President of Corporate Development, he made a significant contribution to the development of genomics in Canada. From 1994 to 2000, he worked as Director of Business Development for the Medical Research Council, where he was in charge of building international partnerships with the pharmaceutical industry, venture capital and foundations. Marc LePage is a member of the Board and the Governance Committee of the Quebec Network for Personalized Health Care. He also sits on the Board of Canada World Youth.

Title: Next Generation Sequencing for Reproductive Medicine

Mark A. Umbarger, Ph.D., Director of R&D, Good Start Genetics, Inc.

Mark Umbarger leads the research and development team at Good Start Genetics (GSG). Dr. Umbarger has over a decade of experience developing genomic analysis and bioinformatic technologies including GSG’s entire next generation DNA sequencing (NGS)-based test portfolio. This portfolio includes GSG’s multi-gene carrier screening assay that was released in 2011, making it one of the first commercially available NGS-based genetic tests. Mark conducted his PhD in the lab of Dr. George Church at Harvard Medical School where he developed tools to elucidate the 3D structure of genomes and worked extensively on the polony sequencing system, an early NGS technology that evolved into both the Polonator and the Applied Biosystems SOLiD system. Dr. Umbarger holds a PhD in Genetics from Harvard University and a BA in Chemistry and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Wesleyan University.

Title: FDA Update: LDTs, CoDx & NGS

Mya Thomae, VP of Regulatory Affairs, Illumina

Mya has almost 20 years of experience with regulatory and quality, much of it as a consultant. Prior to becoming a consultant, Mya learned the ropes at Chiron and OraSure. Mya has been involved in numerous successful applications before FDA for clients in the US, Canada and EU. She worked with FDA to develop the special controls document and regulation for microarray devices and helped establish the precedent for parallel 510(k) submissions. Mya received a Commissioner's Special Citation at the 2009 FDA Honor Awards in recognition of her work to clear the ABI 7500 Fast Dx. Mya founded Myraqa (formerly Mya Thomae Consulting) in 2002, building on several years as an independent contractor.

Title:

Nathan Pearson, Ph.D., Senior Director of Scientific Engagement and Public Outreach, New York Genome Center

After training at Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan, he served as Senior Director of Science and Research at Knome, and as Principal Genome Scientist at QIAGEN, where he teamed with colleagues to build and use software for interpreting human genomes, in order to better understand health, drug response, and other traits. Nathan has also worked with genome-curious individuals, including historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and singer Ozzy Osbourne. In this spirit, he founded the Empowered Genome Community, which helps citizen-scientists make their genomes scientifically useful; and Genomena.com, where he writes on the promise and challenges of the coming era of genomically informed living.

Title: The Personalization of Healthcare and Helomics

Neil Campbell, M.B.A., President and CEO, Helomics

Neil Campbell serves as President and CEO of Helomics™. He is also an Advisor to HealthCare Royalty Partners; Chairman for Mosaigen® Corporation; Chairman for KidsRgenius®; and Senior Research Fellow at University of Liverpool in the U.K. Formerly, Mr. Campbell was Chairman for Child Health Research Institute, (CureKids®); President, CEO and Co-Founder of SuperNova Diagnostics®; General Partner for Endeavour Capital; President & COO/CEO for EntreMed Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ENMD); and Senior Director of Commercial Development for Celera Genomics (NASDAQ:CRA). Additionally, Mr. Campbell held General & Executive Management positions at Life Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIFE); IGEN, Inc., acquired by Roche (NASDAQ:IGEN); and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT). Mr. Campbell is pursuing a Doctorate from the University of Liverpool in the U.K. and earned his M.B.A. and M.A. from Webster University and his B.S. from Norwich University in the U.S.

Title:

Olena Morozova, Ph.D., Ca. Inst. for Regenerative Medicine Postdoctoral Scholar, Genomics Institute, UCSC

Olena Morozova is a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Postdoctoral Scholar in David Haussler’s Laboratory at the Genomics Institute, University of California Santa Cruz. Olena’s research involves genomic studies of pediatric cancers and adult brain tumors, with a particular focus on data sharing, integrative analysis, and personalized medicine applications. Olena obtained her PhD in bioinformatics from the University of British Columbia and her BSc (Hons) in molecular genetics and biology from the University of Toronto.

Title:

Peter Donnelly, Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford University

Peter Donnelly is Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and Professor of Statistical Science at the University of Oxford. He grew up in Australia and on graduating from the University of Queensland he studied for a doctorate in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He held professorships at the Universities of London and Chicago before returning to Oxford in 1996. Peter’s early research work concerned the development of stochastic models in population genetics, including the coalescent, and then the development of statistical methods for genetic and genomic data. His group developed several widely-used statistical algorithms, including STRUCTURE and PHASE, and, in collaboration with colleagues in Oxford, IMPUTE. His current research focuses on understanding the genetic basis of human diseases, human demographic history, bacterial evolution and infection, and the mechanisms involved in mammalian recombination. Peter played a major role in the HapMap project, and more recently, he chaired the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC) and its successor, WTCCC2, a large international collaboration studying the genetic basis of more than 20 common human diseases and conditions in over 60,000 people. He also leads WGS500, an Oxford collaboration with Illumina to sequence 500 individuals with a range of clinical conditions, to assess the short-term potential for whole genome sequencing in clinical medicine. Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Title:

Radoje Drmanac, CSO Complete Genomics, SVP BGI Research

Radoje (Rade) Drmanac is one of the founders of the field of Genomics. Currently he serves as Senior VP of BGI (Shenzhen, China) and Director and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Complete Genomics, Inc. (CGI), now a BGI-owned company, that he co-founded with Cliff Reid in 2005 to develop technologies for efficient and accurate individual genome sequencing (Science 2010; Nature 2012, Science 2012). He invented and led the development of massively parallel DNA sequencing using DNA nanoarrays, ligation-based DNA sequencing, long fragment read and other technologies. Earlier, in 1994, he co-founded Hyseq (later Nuvelo and now ARCA), and served as Director until 2001. As SVP of research and CSO, he led Hyseq’s effort to discover and patent thousands of novel genes for its drug development pipeline. Prior to Hyseq, he was a group leader at Argonne National Labs (1991-1994) as part of DOE Human Genome Project. He completed his postdoctoral studies in 1990 at ICRF in London. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in 1988 at Belgrade University, Serbia, for the conception and pioneering development of the first massively parallel sequencing technology using DNA microarrays (Genomics 1989; Sci. Yugoslavica 1990, Science 1993). At the same university he received BS (1981) and MS (1985) degrees in Molecular Biology. Since 1987, Dr. Drmanac received over 30 patents and over $20M in government grants for the development of advanced genome sequencing technologies.

Title: Custom, Affordable Gene Panels with Superior Coverage & Uniformity

Rami Zahr, NGS Product Manager, IDT

Rami Zahr received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University. During the same period he researched coliform contamination in Cayuga Lake and its tributaries. After graduating, he worked at the NIH for 3 years, studying immune system development in rabbits, mice, and humans. He received his MS degree in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University and is now an NGS Product Manager at IDT.

Title: IVD Value-Based Pricing in the Healthcare Reform

Richard Janeczko, Ph.D., CEO, DxEconomix Inc.

Dr. Richard Janeczko is a 25 year veteran of the in-vitro diagnostics industry, specializing in the marketing and management of molecular and sequencing assays, proteomics, companion diagnostics, and personalized medicine. He is a strong advocate of health economics as the key driver for new technology adoption in a global healthcare reform environment. In 2013 he formed DxEconomix to provide unique IVD marketing services based on system-wide economic impact of diagnostics and value-based pricing. DxEconomix has extensive experience in health economics, clinical sciences, and health technology assessment and adoption in multiple markets including USA, Canada and Europe. Dr. Janeczko served as VP Emerging Markets and Technology at Luminex Corporation, as EVP Business Development and CSO at Tm Bioscience Inc., and as CEO of General Synthesis and Diagnostics. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Alberta, a BSc in Microbiology from Strathclyde University, and is a member of several professional organizations and institutions.

Title: Idylla, a Novel Point of Impact Molecular Diagnostics Solution to Practically Implement Personalized Medicine

Rudi Pauwels, Ph.D., Founder, CEO & Chairman, Biocartis

Rudi Pauwels is a scientist-entrepreneur who has founded and built several successful biotechnology companies, including Tibotec, Virco and Galapagos Genomics. All three anti-HIV drugs from Tibotec were successfully introduced in the clinical and are now widely used for the treatment of HIV-infected patients. His research as well as his entrepreneurial career is driven by the passion to design and find new disruptive solutions for current and future medical needs. He is a strong believer in the value of a multi-disciplinary scientific, technological and clinical approach to solve key pharmaceutical and diagnostic challenges. In 2004 Rudi Pauwels decided to take a 3 year sabbatical at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) where he became more familiar with the advances in micro- & nanotechnologies and with the world of consumer electronics. In 2007 he decided to create Biocartis to address new needs in the field of molecular diagnostics. He is acting CEO & Chairman. Rudi completed his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences (1990) at the Rega Institute for Medical Research (University of Leuven) and is (co-)author of more than peer-reviewed 150 publications. He received several awards for his scientific and entrepreneurial initiatives.

Title: Rapid Blood Test Detects CTCs in Lung Cancer

Ruth L. Katz, M.D., Professor of Pathology, Director of Image Analysis Lab, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Ruth L Katz, MD, is Professor of Pathology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. Her laboratory develops tests to isolate circulating tumor cells(CTCs) from blood using a novel FISH -based antigen independent approaches for enumeration of CTCs. She has received numerous patents for her novel methodology and unique DNA probes. She recently developed a highly sensitive and specific rapid 4 -color FISH test for detecting lung cancer CTCs, which can be used for screening high-risk individuals, as an adjunctive test for determining if indeterminate lung nodules on spiral CT scan are malignant, or to monitor patients on therapy for reduction of tumor burden. Using the FICTION method pioneered in her lab, she showed that many CTCs in lung and breast cancer patients undergo EMT, and express stem cell and mesenchymal markers.

Title:

Somalee Datta, Ph.D., Director of Bioinformatics, Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine

As the Director of Bioinformatics at SCGPM and Director of “Big Data” bioinformatics core, Somalee is responsible for development and deployment of the bioinformatics infrastructure which includes LIMS, sequencing data processing, data analysis pipelines, and a secure HPC infrastructure. Currently the bioinformatics core supports several large scale research and clinical efforts.

Title: Multiplexed Proteomics Diagnostics: Comprehensive Cancer Signature in the Blood

Valeria Ossovskaya, Ph.D., CEO, CSO and co-Founder, BioCrypton

Valeria Ossovskaya is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of BioCrypton and serves on our Board of Directors since August 2012. Prior to BioCrypton, Dr.Ossovskaya was Director of Sanofi Innovation Center and served as Director of R&D at Sanofi Global Oncology. From 2003 to 2009 Dr.Ossovskaya served as a co-founder and Director of R&D at BiPar Sciences (acquired by Sanofi in 2009), where she established preclinical development and translational medicine programs. Prior to joining BiPar, Dr.Ossovskaya served as Assistant Research Professor Biochemist at UCSF and Scientist at Rigel Pharmaceuticals. Her experience includes a number of collaborations and strategic alliance management with biotech and pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Janssen, Novartis, and Oxford Gene Technologies. Dr.Ossovskaya holds a B.S. in Virology and Biochemistry, a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, completed her UICC molecular genetics fellowship at the University of Illinois at Chicago and postdoctoral training at departments of Pathology and Surgery at UCSF. Dr.Ossovskaya has published a number of scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and holds more than 35 patents and patent applications.

Title: Assessment of Aging - The Mitochondria

William D. Shrader, Ph.D., Senior VP of Innovation, Edison Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

William D. Shrader, PhD is the Senior Vice President of Innovation at Edison Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Dr. Shrader obtained his BS in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana and his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. Following his doctoral studies, Dr. Shrader was a National Institute of Health (NIH) postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. He has previously held positions at Abbott Laboratories, Celera Genomics, and Ampere Life Sciences, where he directed programs in thrombosis, oncology, and inflammation. His research expertise spans several fields, including medicinal chemistry, structure-based drug discovery, and enzymology. Dr. Shrader is the author on more than 25 peer-reviewed journal articles in these fields.

Title: The Pursuit of Personal Genome in Japan

Yusuke Tsukahara, Ph.D., President & CEO, Riken Genesis

In 2007, RIKEN GENESIS was founded as a joint venture by RIKEN and TOPPAN with Dr. Tsukahara as CEO. In 2006, he started the Life Science Department in TOPPAN. Previously, he was the head of corporate R&D Strategy, as well as a researcher at TOPPAN Research Institute. In 2004, he launched a collaboration with RIKEN, Institute of Medical Sciences of Tokyo University, and Shimadzu for the realization of personalized medicine based on DNA chip technologies.

Anne Wojcicki, CEO and Co-Founder, 23andMe

Anne co-founded 23andMe in 2006 after a decade spent in healthcare investing, focused primarily on biotechnology companies. Her hope was to empower consumers with access to their own genetic information and to create a way to generate more personalized information so that commercial and academic researchers could better understand and develop new drugs and diagnostics. Presently, 23andMe has built one of the world's largest databases of individual genetic information. Its novel, web-based research approach allows for the rapid recruitment of participants to many genome-wide association studies at once, reducing the time and money needed to make new discoveries, and the company has created a proven and standardized resource for finding new genetic association and confirming genetic loci discovered by others. Under Anne's leadership 23andMe has made significant advances in bringing personalized medicine directly to the public. Anne graduated from Yale University with a BS in Biology. Getting access to and understanding her own genetic information had always been one of her ambitions.

Bill McGivney, Ph.D., Principal, McGivney Global Advisors LLC

Bill McGivney is Principal, McGivney Global Advisors LLC, a consulting company advising pharma/biotech, investment houses, and informatics companies.Experience and Expertise: 1. CEO, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, NCCN (1997-2011) 2. Founder, NCCN Drugs/Biologics Compendium 3. Vice President, Coverage/Clinical Policy, Aetna (1991-1997) 4. Member, Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee (2003-2007) 5. Expanded NCCN globally in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America 6. FDA liaison for American Medical Association (AMA) (1988-1991) 7. Directed AMA’s Technology Assessment Program, DATTA (1985-1991) 8. Ph.D. in Pharmacology, University of North Carolina Medical School; Postdoctoral Fellowship, Harvard Medical School.

Bonnie H. Anderson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Veracyte

Ms. Bonnie H. Anderson Co-founded Veracyte, Inc., in 2008 and has been its Chief Executive Officer since February 2008. Ms. Anderson has been President of Veracyte, Inc., since August 2013. She has over 25 years of experience in venture capital consulting and market development services. She served as Vice President-Director of the intrapreneurial Immunomics Operations at Beckman Coulter. Ms. Anderson serves on the Board of Keck Graduate Institute of Life Sciences and the Advisory Board for Bay Bio.

Catherine Polizzi, Ph.D., Partner, Morrison & Foerster LLP

Dr. Polizzi is a Partner at Morrison & Foerster, where she helps emerging and established companies through the challenging process of obtaining patents, providing strategic, effective portfolio counseling and management. She develops valuable, strategic portfolios around breakthrough therapies in a variety of areas, including personalized medicine, cancer, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases, infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease. Her practice also includes due diligence evaluation and counseling in the context of venture investment assessments, as well as in connection with public and private financing, spin-offs, partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions. Dr. Polizzi is recognized as one of the Top 25 IP managers in California for three years running.

Frank S. Ong, M.D., Associate Director of Medical Affairs, Illumina, Inc.

Previously, Dr. Ong was a member of the faculty of Biomedical Sciences at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He graduated from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, then served as Resident Physician in the Department of Family Medicine at UCLA. He completed a research fellowship in genetics of blood pressure regulation in the Division of Experimental Pathology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and a clinical fellowship in Clinical Molecular Genetics in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of UCLA. He has garnered numerous awards for his research in hypertension. His interest in genetics and personalized medicine has led to active participation in several population genetics consortia, focusing on the genetics of blood pressure regulation, personal genomics and pharmacogenetics.

George D. Lundberg, M.D., Editor-at-Large, Medscape

As Editor-at-Large for Medscape, Dr. Lundberg delivers to readers his informed perspective on up-to-the minute issues affecting healthcare and the practice of medicine. In addition to his work with Medscape, he serves as Editor-in-Chief and Chief Medical Officer for CollabRx, as President and Chair of the Board of Directors of The Lundberg Institute, and as a consulting professor at Stanford University. Dr. Lundberg has more than 30 years' combined experience as Editor-in-Chief of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), the 10 AMA specialty journals, AM News, Medscape, The Medscape Journal of Medicine, eMedicine from WebMD, and MedPage Today from Everyday Health. He was called a medical Internet “pioneer” in 1995. A frequent lecturer and radio and television guest, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, the Industry Standard dubbed Dr. Lundberg “Online Healthcare's Medicine Man” in 2000.

Gil Omenn, M.D., Ph.D., Director, University of Michigan Center for Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics

Dr. Omenn's research focuses on cancer proteomics and informatics. He leads the Proteomics Alliance for Cancer Research, the HUPO Plasma Proteome Project, the Driving Biological Problems Core of the National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics, and the Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics. There are datasets for application of analytical tools, and there are research teams eager to engage in collaborative studies in each of these initiatives. He has long-standing interests in mechanisms of genetic predispositions to risks from environmental and occupational exposures, pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics, and science-based risk analyses. Gilbert Omenn is Professor of Internal Medicine, Human Genetics, and Public Health at the University of Michigan. He served as Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and as Chief Executive Officer of the University of Michigan Health System from 1997-2002. He is PI of the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor Proteomics Alliance for Cancer research program and leader of the international Human Proteome Organization (HUPO).

Ira Klein, M.D., MBA, Medical Director, Aetna

Ira M. Klein, M.D., MBA, FACP, Chief of Staff, Office of the Chief Medical Officer, National Accounts Clinical Sales & Strategy, Aetna, Inc. Dr. Klein has been with Aetna since April of 2006, and, as of September 2011, is Chief of Staff to the Chief Medical Officer, responsible for communicating and deploying the strategic efforts of the CMO in multiple areas, including leveraging of business acquisitions, and clinician and clinical program development. Before that, he operated for two years in the National Accounts Sales and Support group at the corporate level, involved in the development of new benefits designs, financial and clinical analytics for National Accounts, and the evolution of oncology strategies.

John E. Steiner, Chief Compliance & Privacy Officer & Associate General Counsel, CTCA

John E. Steiner, Jr. is the Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer and Associate General Counsel for Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA). He is responsible for the design, implementation and administration of the enterprise compliance program. Prior to CTCA, he served in a similar role for UK HealthCare of the University of Kentucky. Before that, he served as the first Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer for the Cleveland Clinic Health System. He also was Senior Counsel for the American Hospital Association. Mr. Steiner obtained his BA from the Johns Hopkins University and his JD from the Illinois Institute of Technology/ Chicago-Kent College of Law. He is a Vice-Chairman of the American Bar Association Health Law Committee.

Jonathan Hirsch, Founder & President, Syapse

Jonathan Hirsch is the Founder and President of Syapse, a software company transforming healthcare by bringing omics into routine medical use. At Syapse, Jonathan works closely with diagnostic and healthcare providers, helping translate customer problems into software solutions. Jonathan is an Advisory Board member of the SXSW Accelerator, a mentor for UCSF Lean Launchpad for Healthcare course, and a member of the Steering Committee of Free the Data!, an effort started by Genetic Alliance to crowdsource the interpretation of cancer genes. Earlier in his career, Jonathan worked in Neuroscience Commercial Development at Abbott Laboratories, where he developed strategies to fund drug development through partnerships and private equity financing. His research at the Center for Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Chicago helped establish the effect of exercise on promoting hippocampal neurogenesis and combating Alzheimer’s disease. Jonathan received an M.Sci. in Neuroscience from Stanford University, and an A.B. in Biology and Political Philosophy from the University of Chicago.

Jonathan Sheldon, Ph.D., Global Vice President Health Sciences, Oracle

Jonathan Sheldon, Ph.D., is Global Vice President Healthcare responsible for Oracle Health Sciences healthcare analytics platform and solutions including in the areas of translational medicine, population health and convergence with Life Sciences. Previously, Dr. Sheldon was Chief Scientific Officer at InforSense, where he was responsible for the company's strategic direction in the health sciences market, as well as leading the consulting group. Prior to InforSense, he was Chief Technology Officer for Confirmant Ltd, where he was responsible for developing the company's proteomics products and services. He also established the first bioinformatics group and was Head of Bioinformatics for five years at Roche Welwyn, UK. Dr. Sheldon holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology/Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.

Laurence J. Marton, M.D., Session Chair

Dr. Marton serves as a consultant to industry and to nonprofit, governmental, and academic institutions. In the nonprofit sector, Dr. Marton serves on the Board of Trustees of the American Association for Cancer Research Foundation, and on the Board of Directors of Cancer Commons, Rapid Science, and the Bay Area American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science. In the for-profit sector, he serves on the Board of Directors of TOMA Biosciences, RenovoRx, Microsonic Systems and Pathologica, is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of PharmaJet, and is on the Advisory Boards of Gem Pharmaceuticals and Silicom Ventures. Previously, Dr. Marton was Dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School and Chaired the Department of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF, where he was a Professor in the Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Neurological Surgery. He is an expert in the fields of cell growth and drug development. His research has resulted in more than 195 original publications, 60 scientific reviews and chapters, four books, and numerous patents. Dr. Marton received his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and his BA from Yeshiva University.

Matthew Rabinowitz, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, Natera

Dr. Rabinowitz has had dual careers in industry and academia. He completed his B.A., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford University, receiving both the Levin and Terman Awards the highest academic honors offered respectively in engineering and physics and a graduate fellowship to the school of engineering. While completing his dissertation, Rabinowitz co-founded an intelligent online merchandizing company, Panop.com, which later sold for $100M. Shortly after, Rabinowitz started his second company, Rosum, which developed a location technology using TV signals to augment GPS. Rosum received the World Economic Forum “100 Technology Pioneers” award when he was CTO.

Michael Pellini, M.D., President & Chief Executive Officer, Foundation Medicine

Michael Pellini is president and CEO of Foundation Medicine. Previously he was president and chief operating officer at Clarient, a GE Healthcare Company. Prior to joining Clarient, Pellini served as vice president of life sciences at Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. He also was executive vice president and chief operating officer at Lakewood Pathology Associates. Pellini received a B.A. from Boston College, an M.B.A. from Drexel University and an M.D. from Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.

Michael Shuster, Ph.D., Partner, Fenwick & West

Dr. Shuster is a partner in Fenwick & West's Intellectual Property Practice and is co-chair of the firm's Life Sciences Group. Dr. Shuster has legal and technical experience representing companies in biotechnology and high technology areas that include protein and nucleic acid chemistry, clean tech, high resolution protein structures, proteomics, genomics, combinatorial peptide libraries, vaccine development for viral and autoimmune disorders, transdermal drug delivery systems, liposomal drug formulations as well as microfluidics devices.

Sanjay Joshi, CTO, Life Sciences, EMC Isilon Storage Division

Based in Seattle, Sanjay's 25+ year career has spanned the entire gamut of life-sciences from clinical and biotechnology research to healthcare informatics to medical devices. His current focus is Big Data in Genomics and Proteomics. Recent experience has included Electronic Medical Records; Proteomics and Flow Cytometry; FDA and HIPAA validations; LIMS; Translational Genomics research and Imaging. Sanjay was the recipient of an NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant and has been a consultant or co-PI on several NIH grants. He is actively involved in non-profit biotech networking and educational organizations in the Seattle area and beyond.

Scott Patterson, Ph.D., Executive Director, Medical Sciences Amgen Inc.

Dr. Patterson is an Executive Director in the Medical Sciences function at Amgen leading the In Vitro Diagnostic Group which is responsible for the identification, implementation and management of diagnostic partnering strategies for all Amgen therapeutics. He was previously VP of Proteomics at the Celera Genomics Group and the Chief Scientific Officer of Farmal Biomedicines, LLC. While at Celera, he established the company's initial foray into identification of cell surface targets for oncology, a number of which have been licensed. He was at Amgen from 1993–2000 ultimately leading the Department of Biochemistry and Genetics. His academic career began at The University of Queensland where he held research positions of increasing responsibility over a period of 11 years, culminating in that of Senior Research Officer.

Steven H. Stein, M.D., Senior Vice President, US Clinical Development & Medical Affairs, Novartis Oncology US

Steven H. Stein, MD is Senior Vice President, US Clinical Development & Medical Affairs, at Novartis Oncology US. In this important role, Dr. Stein’s primary responsibility is leading NA Oncology medical/scientific activities, including the planning, resource allocation and execution of registration and non registration studies (Medical Affairs) clinical programs, aligned with Global and US OBU priorities. He is also responsible for the Medical Sciences & Health Outcomes function, which includes the Scientific Operations, Scientific Communications, Medical Information and Education, and Health Economics and Outcomes Research groups. Additionally, Dr. Stein provides medical support to the product planning group on the impact of line extensions, new indications and formula changes. Dr. Stein previously worked at GlaxoSmithKline as Vice President, Global Oncology, Clinical Development and also as Head of Medicines Development for Hematology and Supportive Care. He served as clinical lead for all regulatory interactions globally. Dr. Stein earned his MD from MBBCH University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers and presentations and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Stein is also an active member of several professional and scientific societies and academic committees.

Gadi Behar, Co-founder and President, Silicom Ventures

Gadi Behar brings 35 years of business and management experience. During the last fifteen years Gadi has been engaged in business planning, development, financial and fundraising work for a variety of Silicon Valley and Israel-based startups. Under his leadership, Silicom Ventures has grown to be the largest global business forum in the United States. Gadi has relationships with most VCs and major news media and has been interviewed by NPR, The San Jose Mercury News, Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. Gadi's vast network includes business leaders and investors in Silicon Valley, Israel and Europe, as well as relationships with the governments of Israel, Spain, Mexico and The Netherlands. Gadi has been instrumental in obtaining funding for over 50 companies to the tune of $80M, accompanied by $110M investment by institutional Venture Capital firms. Under Gadi's leadership Silicom Ventures has had 9 successful exits.

John Steuart, Managing Director, Prolog Ventures

John has more than 25 years of experience managing healthcare and technology venture funds and companies. Prior to Prolog, he was a co-founder and managing director of Claremont Creek Ventures. He also served as the CFO of two venture-backed public companies that were acquired by United Airlines New Ventures. He began his investment career at Alafi Capital. John earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from UC Berkeley, where he serves on the Advisory Boards for the Lester Center of Entrepreneurship and Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.

Laurence Marton, Program Committee Chairman, PMWC

Dr. Marton serves as a consultant to industry and to nonprofit, governmental, and academic institutions. In the nonprofit sector, Dr. Marton serves on the Board of Trustees of the American Association for Cancer Research Foundation and on the Board of Directors of Cancer Commons. In the for-profit sector, he serves on the Board of Directors of TOMA Biosciences, RenovoRx, Microsonic Systems, and Pathologica, is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of PharmaJet, and is on the Advisory Boards of Gem Pharmaceuticals and Silicom Ventures. Before moving from academia to industry, Dr. Marton was Dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School and previously Chaired the Department of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF, where he was a Professor in the Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Neurological Surgery.

Paul Billings, M.D., Ph.D., Executive-in-Residence, Innovation (California Center), Johnson&Johnson

Dr. Paul R. Billings is the first Chief Medical Officer of LIFE Technologies, a world leader in providing nucleic acid and other analytic tools for biomedical research and the delivery of personalized medicine. Prior to joining LIFE, Dr. Billings was the founding and acting Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Genomic Medicine Institute at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, CA. From 2007-2009, Dr. Billings served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of CELLective Dx Corporation, a company sought to revolutionize cancer care through the provision of microfluidic products and services focused on circulating tumor cells. For five years until 2007, he was Senior Vice President and Senior Geneticist at Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings Inc (LH).Prior to joining LH, Dr. Billings was Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief of General Internal Medicine at the Palo Alto VA Healthcare System and Stanford Medical School, and then CMO and Deputy Network Director of VISN 17 in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Billings graduated with an AB in History summa cum laude from UC San Diego, received both his MD and PhD degrees from Harvard University.

Simone Fishburn, Ph.D., Editor, BioCentury Innovations

Simone is the Editor ofBioCentury Innovations, which covers translational research at the interface of academia and industry. Prior to joining BioCentury in 2013, Simone worked as a translational scientist in biotech, including nine years in preclinical drug development at Nektar Therapeutics where she was Director of Translational Research. Before joining the industry, Simone worked in academia and performed research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and post-doctoral studies at UCSF on G protein coupled signal transduction. Simone is also an active proponent of women's career advancement, and from 2013-2014was the president of Women In Bio, a national organization of over 1500 members that is dedicated to promoting careers, leadership and entrepreneurship for women in life sciences. Simone isa Fulbright scholar andholds a Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology from the Weizmann Institute, and an M.A. and B.A. in pharmacology from Cambridge University.

Tal Behar, Co-founder & President, PMWC Intl

Tal Behar founded the Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC), in 2009 partnering with Stanford Health Care. Today, PMWC is the leading global gathering of professionals focused on personalized medicine. Tal has been responsible for the Conference’s steady and profitable growth to more than 1000 attendees, 100 speakers, 200 companies and scores of exhibitors per event. Tal is also a co-founder of Silicon Ventures, the private high tech investor forum that provides funding to early stage companies. Under her leadership, hundreds of high technology-focused events in Silicon Valley and abroad have been launched. Tal studied Law in Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Zavain Dar, Senior Associate, Lux Capital

Zavain is a Senior Associate at Lux working alongside and collaborating with passionate entrepreneurs building paradigm-shifting technologies to disrupt and engage large markets. Previously, as an investor at Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, he invested and worked with numerous early stage technology companies including Zymergen and HumanAPI, while concurrently leading the firm's theses in Genetics, Synthetic Biology, and Bitcoin. This work led to speaking engagements at top universities and industry conferences. Prior to Innovation Endeavors he was an early employee at Discovery Engine, a next generation keyword search engine acquired by Twitter. There he engineered Machine Learning and Data Science algorithms across a proprietary distributed systems framework to build web scale ranking algorithms. He was also a founder of Fountainhop, one of the first hyper-local social networks. Zavain attended Stanford University where he holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and an M.S. in Theoretical Computer Science. While pursuing his M.S., Zavain was a researcher in Stanford's Computational Logic Group through which he co-chaired the 2012 General Game Playing Championship at IJCAI in Barcelona. He is currently an adjunct instructor at Stanford University, recently teaching the first Cryptocurrency class offered from any top-25 school.

Alex Tkachenko, Ph.D., Industry Advisor, UCSF Catalyst Award Program

Alex Tkachenko, Ph.D., is co-founder of Siluria Technologies, a technology company that developed the world’s first economically attractive process for making transportation fuels and commodity chemicals out of natural gas, rather than oil. After leading the company for its first five years, Alex helped recruit an outstanding CEO, stepped down from the executive team, and is now working on his next adventure. Currently, Alex is a member of founding team of a seed-stage biotech company, working with venture investors, scientific founders and thought leaders to build a science-based CNS therapeutics venture. He is an industry advisor to the UCSF Catalyst Awards program, helping to translate UCSF’s early-stage research ideas into marketable products. In the 2013 awards cycle, the team that Alex advised won the largest award in the cycle, to develop a novel contrast agent for DECT imaging. Alex started his industry career with Genentech, where he led the development and implementation of Companion Diagnostics initiative. At Genentech, Alex was involved with development and commercialization of several breakthrough drugs targeted to specific patient subgroups, including Tarceva, Rituxan, armed Herceptin (now Kadcyla) and pertuzumab (now Perjeta). Earlier, Alex served as a squad leader in the Soviet Army and completed a tour of combat duty in Afghanistan. A Ph.D. biologist, Alex also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Alexander Schuth, M.D., Head of Technology Innovation and Diagnostics, gPartnering

Alex Schuth is Head of Technology Innovation and Diagnostics in gPartnering. He and his team are responsible for identifying and executing collaborations and licensing transactions to access innovative technologies that will strengthen Genentech’s R&D capabilities. Prior to this position, Alex led Genentech’s partnering activities in the neuroscience field. Before joining Genentech in 2005, Alex worked for three years in the investment banking group at Merrill Lynch in London, specializing in capital market transactions in the health care sector. He is a physician by training and completed his medical degree at the Charite Medical School in Berlin, Germany. He also holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School.

Ashley Dombkowski, Ph.D., Managing Director, Bay City Capital

Ashley Dombkowski, Ph.D., is a Managing Director with Bay City Capital, a $1.6B venture capital firm focused on life sciences. Prior to joining Bay City, she served as Chief Business Officer and Vice President of Operations for 23andMe, where she oversaw the company’s finance and operations activities and had responsibility for the company’s long term business strategy focused on database growth plans, R&D productivity, and profitability. Prior to joining 23andMe, she was a Managing Director with venture capital firm MPM Capital where she also served as a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. During her years at MPM she focused on developing innovative biotechnology, medical device, and healthcare IT companies, including companies such as 23andMe, Adolor, Alnara, BioVitrum, Epizyme, iPierian, Neosil, Nevro, Rigel, and Tercica. Dr. Dombkowski holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Rice University and received her B.A. in Mathematics from Wellesley College. She has been widely quoted in publications ranging from Nature to The Wall Street Journal and she has appeared in media outlets ranging from CNBC to TedMed. She was recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Business by the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2010.

Isaac Bright, M.D., Partner, Merieux Developpement

Isaac Bright started his career as Market Development Associate for Pacific Consultants. After various assignments at CIBC World Markets, Isaac served as Corporate Development Associate and Director of Business Development for Medtronic from 2006 to 2009. In 2009, Isaac joined QuantaLife as VP Corporate Development & Molecular Diagnostics until its successful trade sale to Bio-Rad Laboratories in 2011. Isaac earned his Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from Pepperdine University and his MD at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He also earned his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kim Kamdar, Ph.D., Partner, Domain Associates

Kim Kamdar is a Partner at Domain Associates, a Healthcare focused Venture Capital Firm. Present board memberships include Ariosa Diagnostics, Epic Sciences, Lithera, Obalon Therapeutics, ROX Medical, Sera Prognostics, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, and Tragara Pharmaceuticals, as well as observer status at aTyr Pharma. Dr. Kamdar was involved with Corthera until the Company was sold to Novartis in February 2010, BiPar Sciences until the company was sold to sanofi-aventis in April 2009, and Achaogen until the company held its IPO in March 2014. Prior to Domain, Kim was a Kauffman Fellow with MPM Capital. Prior to joining MPM, she was a research director at Novartis, where she built and led a research team that focused on the biology, genetics and genomics of model organisms to uncover small molecules that modulated signaling pathway networks. Kim is a founder of Aryzun Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company utilizing protein-protein interaction mapping for small molecule discovery with an initial focus on anti-infectives and oncology. Kim is the author of ten papers as well as the inventor on seven patents. She received her B.A. from Northwestern University and her Ph.D. in biochemistry and genetics from Emory University.

Paul Conley, Ph.D., Managing Director, Paladin Capital Group

Dr. Conley leads new investments for the firm while serving as an active Director on many of Paladin’s portfolio company Boards. Paul joined the Paladin team after more than 15 years of previous R&D and entrepreneurial experience. As founding CEO of BrightScale, he led the commercialization of a patented multi-core microprocessor technology in the HDTV market. As founding CEO of Appfluent Technology, he led the commercialization of patented in-memory distributed database technologies in the enterprise IT market. Prior to taking the entrepreneurial route, he spent nearly a decade in multidisciplinary R&D roles in the areas of high-performance computing, applied physics and biomedical engineering, including postdoctoral positions at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Paul earned a PhD in Computational Physics and an MS in Bioengineering from UCSD, as well as an MS and BS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia

Simon Greenwood, Ph.D., Investment Director, Roche Venture Fund

Dr. Simon Greenwood is an investment director for the Roche Venture Fund with more than 15 years of experience in the biotechnology industry. In this role, he has led investments in companies such as Allakos, Biodesy, CytomX, DVS (acquired by Fluidigm), Epic Sciences, Maculogix and Stratos. Prior to his role at the Roche Venture Fund, Dr. Greenwood was the head of GenenFund, Genentech’s corporate venture fund, and he also held roles in research and business development at Genentech. Dr. Greenwood holds a Ph.D. in genetics and development from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was selected as a Fulbright Scholar.

Stacy Feld, Senior Director, Consumer Scientific Innovation, Johnson & Johnson

Stacy is Senior Director of Consumer Scientific Innovation at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, California. Stacy leads Consumer sector efforts to identify, nurture, and on-board technical and strategic value assets, and identify potential synergies to leverage within the Consumer sector. Stacy has nearly two decades of diverse experience in the healthcare, life sciences and consumer sectors as a transactional attorney, business development executive, venture investor and business strategist.

Euan Thomson, M.D., Operating Partner, Khosla Ventures

Euan Thomson is an Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures, working with portfolio companies in healthcare. Prior to joining Khosla Ventures, Euan had more than 14 years of experience as a CEO, managing both private and public companies. Trained as a medical physicist, Euan devoted more than fifteen years to research, teaching, clinical practice, and administration within the United Kingdom health care system. At Khosla Ventures, Euan is working with most of the healthcare portfolio, including Quanttus, CellScope, ZyoMed, AliveCor, EyeNetra, Ginger.io and MEDgle. Currently Euan is serving as interim CEO at AliveCor, with responsibility for reviewing and setting future strategy. Euan is dedicated to the vision of data-driven healthcare and its potential impact on the quality of decision-making, efficiency and consumer empowerment.

Hong Truong, Associate, Kaiser Permanente Ventures

Hong is responsible for venture investment analysis, evaluation and transaction execution. Before Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Hong spend three years at Analysis Group, an economic, financial and strategy consulting firm, focusing on the health economics and strategy practice. At Analysis Group, Hong worked with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to help clients develop strategies and related evidence to support anticipated evidence based review, especially in the context of coverage and reimbursement determination. Prior to Analysis Group, Hong was a public health researcher with work spanning nutritional epidemiology, health economics, and outcomes data analysis. Hong received her BSc in Human Biology and BA in International Relations from Brown University and MPH in Health Management from Yale University.

Jordan Shlain, M.D., Health Advisor, Aspen Institute

Dr. Jordan Shlain is a nationally recognized physician for his innovative approach to the delivery of healthcare. In addition to being a full time doctor and founder of Healthloop, he has been appointed commissioner by the Mayor to the SF Health Service Systems Board and sits on the board of the bi-partisian Washington, DC policy think tank, Hope Street Group. He has been named one of the top 100 health care innovators by HealthSpottr. In addition to being a frequent speaker at various conferences; Health 2.0, RockHealth, Economist Big Ideas, Futuremed and UC Berkeley’s Pre-Med 101, he consults with the investor community as a due diligence expert.

Mohit Kaushal, M.D., Partner, Aberdare Ventures

Mohit is the newest member of the Aberdare team, joining as a partner in 2013. Mohit has had an extensive career within clinical medicine, venture capital and health policy. He was most recently the inaugural Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President of Business Development at West Health a unique set of entities focused on lowering health care costs through medical research, healthcare policy and investment. He developed the West Health Investment Fund strategy, sourced and led investments in Humedica (acquired by Optum Health), Change Healthcare, RxAnte and goBalto. Previously, Mohit was the Director of Connected Health with the Federal Communications Commission, where he established the agency’s first dedicated health care team. During his time in the Obama administration, he was also a member of the White House Health IT task force, a cross agency team focusing on implementing the technology aspects of Health Reform. Prior to this position, Kaushal was an investment professional at Polaris Venture Partners, and worked for Merrill Lynch’s Health Care Investment Banking Group and the World Health Organization. Kaushal holds an MBA from Stanford and an MD with distinction from Imperial College, London. In addition to his role at Aberdare Ventures, Mohit is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University and serves on the curation team at TEDMED. He has been appointed to the Consumer Technology Workgroup of the Health IT Standards Committee and to the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics advising HHS on Data Access and Use.

Noah Lewis, Managing Director, Healthcare, GE Ventures

Noah Lewis specializes in MedTech and SaaS investing—with a focus on disease management business models integrating smart devices, software analytics and services. He founded GE Ventures portfolio operating practice and dedicates much of his time growing his previous investments including board positions at Ornim Medical, Veran Medical and Acutus Medical. Noah was named a “Top 10 Healthcare VC on Twitter”, is quoted by industry journals including Medical Device & Diagnostics Industry and MedCityNews and is a frequent expert speaker at investment and globalization forums including the MedTech Investing Conference, the China, India & U.S. Life Science Markets Summit and the Private Equity & Venture Capital Summit. Prior to entering Venture Capital, he led strategic planning for the $10B GE Healthcare Systems division and started his career in the technology industry at IBM. Noah holds an MBA degree from MIT and a BS degree from Skidmore College. Noah lives in San Francisco and goes cycling in the Marin countryside any chance he gets.

Vijay Lathi, Managing Director, New Leaf Venture Partners

Vijay Lathi is a Managing Director and concentrates primarily on our information convergence and diagnostics investments. Vijay joined Sprout in 1998, and was part of the team that spun out of Sprout in 2005 to form New Leaf. Prior to joining Sprout, working as an analyst in the Healthcare Venture Capital Group at Robertson Stephens & Co. and Cornerstone Research, a consulting firm focused on financial and economic analysis for business litigation. Vijay graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University where he received his B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering, with an emphasis on the application of engineering to life science technology. Vijay is also a member of AiCHE.