Since 2008, Shashi has been employed by Pfizer, overseeing translational biomarker strategies for developing innovative medicines. Currently, Shashi is the Executive Director-Global Head of Biomarkers within Drug Safety R&D, Pfizer Inc. In his current role, responsible for Safety Biomarker activities across all DSRD sites and for establishing and maintaining scientific strategy and operations group across global biomarker groups. Shashi is leading several precompetitive consortia (IMI, PSTC) involving biomarkers and safety biomarker initiatives. During his 20 years of combined academic and pharmaceutical industry experience, Shashi has delivered over 50 invited seminars and written more than 45 peer-reviewed publications and over 15 book chapters including serving on editorial board of peer reviewed journals and leadership within scientific societies. Shashi Ramaiah completed his PhD from University of Louisiana at Monroe in Pharmacology and Toxicology. After completing his PhD, Shashi enrolled in the Clinical Pathology residency program at University of Florida and completed his certification in Veterinary Clinical Pathology. Following his residency training, Shashi accepted a tenure track faculty position in the department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University. During his ~6 yr stint as a faculty at Texas A&M, Shashi pursued his independent research on an NIH-NIAAA funded research grant on alcoholic hepatitis and non alcoholic fatty liver syndrome. In addition to his research, Shashi participated in diagnostic clinical pathology service, residency training and graduate student teaching at Texas A&M University.
Paul Keown is Professor of Medicine and Director of Immune Sciences at the University of British Columbia and Lead of the Genome Canada Transplant Consortium. He received his MD and DSc degrees in the UK with post-doctoral research in immunology and clinical medicine in Europe and Canada.
Maria is currently Head of Precision Medicine for Biopharmaceuticals in AstraZeneca. In this role she leads the delivery of precision medicines and their associated companion diagnostics for drugs across a diverse range of therapeutic areas including cardiovascular, renal, metabolism (CVRM), respiratory and immunology (R&I), microbial science and neuroscience. Maria has extensive experience in the field of precision medicine and companion diagnostic development. She has contributed to the successful launch of three personalised treatments in oncology and the delivery of over 30 companion diagnostic assays to the market to date. With over 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry Maria has considerable knowledge of all phases of life science product discovery and development.
Yinghui Zhou is Senior Director in Oncology Precision Medicine at Bayer, responsible for the portfolio of targeted alpha therapies. He also has extensive experience in developing therapies targeting DNA repair pathways, immune checkpoints, as well as antibody drug conjugates. Yinghui received his PhD in molecular genetics from Northwestern University.
Chetan Deshpande is a Director, Biomarker Clinical Assay Lead in Global Product Development at Pfizer. He is responsible for leading the biomarker oversight on multiple assets within the Pfizer Oncology portfolio. He is a key member of various initiatives from technical, technological and vendor assessment to adoption of digital technology in clinical trials to improve operational efficiencies. Currently, he sits on Vendor Oversight Leadership Team and is also a key member leading multiple global collaborations. Prior to joining Pfizer, Chetan spent over 15 years in academic and pharmaceutical industry including Amgen and Stanford Medical Center. Chetan received M.S. in Immunology at University of Tennessee, Memphis, M.Sc. in Microbiology from University of Pune, India, and an MBA in Finance and Global Business from Pepperdine University Business School.
Jim Christian, MD is a Staff Pathologist within the Companion Diagnostics Division of Agilent Technologies, involved in multiple projects focusing on the development of biomarker assays for specific oncologic indications and their corresponding therapeutic products. Dr. Christian graduated from Wake Forest University, and obtained an MS in Anatomy and medical degree from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. He completed Pathology residency training at Wake Forest University Medical Center, and is board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology. He also completed fellowships in Urologic Pathology at Bostwick Laboratories and in Surgical Pathology at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to joining Agilent Technologies, Dr. Christian practiced pathology in multiple hospital and laboratory settings.
Jijumon Chelliserry, Ph.D. is a Senior Manager, Biomarker Clinical Assay Lead in the Oncology Clinical Assay Group in Global Product Development at Pfizer. He is responsible for scientific technical oversight and operational management of external and internal partners performing clinical trial biomarker sample analyses, aligned with translational oncology strategies. Prior to joining Pfizer in mid-2018, Jijumon worked on the development and validation of IVD testing assays for few Biotechnology companies. Jijumon holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry & Biochemistry from the University of Texas, at Austin.
Mark Verardo has 15 years of experience in both pharmaceutical and medical device companies developing biomarker assays for research through clinical stage programs, including multiplex assays. In his current role at Agilent Technologies he part of Companion Diagnostics with a focus on strategic and technical alignment of diagnostic and therapeutic programs. He earned his Ph.D. from UCLA and received post‑doctoral training from UC Santa Barbara.
Matt Davis PhD joined Gritstone Oncology (NASDAQ: GRTS) in 2015 and is currently the Director of Molecular Biology and Sequencing responsible for various neo-antigen discovery and translational genomics efforts. Prior to Gritstone, Dr. Davis conducted post-doctoral research at Warp Drive Bio in the discovery biology group. He holds a PhD in Genetics from Yale with thesis research under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Schlessinger and previous to his graduate work he conducted cancer genomics research at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute.
Elizabeth’s scientific background is in biomolecular analysis, with a PhD from Cambridge looking at the role of protein mis-folding in neurodegenerative disease. She has 10 years experience in business development and innovation strategy, specializing in helping companies who have innovative technologies to support bioanalytics and make drug development easier and less risky. She has a particular interest in technologies to enable non-invasive sampling, that as well as assisting in drug development, also make things easier for patients.
Jason Kinchen is a Biomarker Discovery Lead at Owlstone Medical. He earned his PhD from Stony Brook focusing on applying genetic discovery methods to problems in innate immunity. He then accepted a postdoctoral (and later faculty) position at the University of Virginia, where he discovered an interest in how metabolism impacts systems biology. For the past 7+ years Jason has led teams focused on biomarker discovery and diagnostic development using metabolomics, and the implications of these findings to the biology of disease.
Hillary Sloane, Ph.D. is the Associate Director of Medical Scientific Affairs at Sysmex Inostics, Inc., located in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Sloane specializes in liquid biopsy-based diagnostics, with experience working for commercial providers of both Circulating Tumor Cell (CTC) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing. At Sysmex Inostics, Dr. Sloane works closely with biopharma partners to leverage the Safe-Sequencing ctDNA technology for ultrasensitive biomarker detection, in order to optimize and accelerate clinical development programs.
Miten is an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz. He did his PhD in Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics at UC Santa Cruz in the nanopore group. His prior work and research interests include developing biological methods and software for: 1) analyzing genomics data; 2) long read sequencing of DNA and RNA; 3) resolving homopolymers and base modifications; 4) the nanopore MinION and PromethION sequencing platforms; and 5) sequencing and analysis of different classes of RNA (mRNA, rRNA, tRNA, non-coding RNA). His long term interests include combining sequence and structure information from DNA (genomics), RNA (coding and non-coding), and proteins, to better understand genome organization and function.
Reny-Business Development leader with 20 years of experience in diagnostics and life sciences. During the past 10+ years, Reny has launched Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies and services in both research and clinical settings. Reny is currently working with top Pharma companies on their Oncology drug development programs using the Signatera ultra-sensitive, personalized ctDNA test for assessing Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) and response to treatment.
Dr. Angel Augusto Rodriguez is a board certified medical oncologist who specializes in breast medical oncology and conducts clinical research with circulating tumor DNA. Before joining Natera, Dr. Rodriguez practiced at Austin Cancer Centers and Houston Methodist Cancer Center where he was Director of the Clinical Trials Office and the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Clinic. While at Houston Methodist he was principal investigator of clinical trials and conducted clinical research with circulating tumor DNA.
Dr. James (Jim) Garrett has been working with biomarkers and diagnostic devices for 25 years. He's worked with scientists and engineers on setting specifications, creating QC procedures, developing decision-making algorithms, and using designed experiments to optimize systems. He has experience in exploratory modeling (using additive as well as machine-learning methods), biomarker lead discovery, and statistical analysis for clinical biomarker publications. He has worked at Novartis for 9 years.
Dr. James Yen is Associate Director of CDx Strategy within NeoGenomics’ Pharma Services division. He completed his doctorate studies at UC Irvine studying the mechanism of protein degradation. Afterwards, he began working at Zymo Research (Irvine, CA) to lead the development of research reagents and kits for the study of epigenetics. He subsequently joined MDxHealth (Irvine, CA) in 2011 to setup their CLIA/CAP lab operations within the US and worked in both the clinical operations and product development teams as a senior scientist. In 2014, James joined Clarient (GE Healthcare) to manage the Pharma Services molecular and FISH operation teams. NeoGenomics acquired Clarient from GE Healthcare in 2015, and he transitioned to a scientific liaison with a focus on NeoGenomics’ molecular, FISH and companion diagnostic service offerings until late 2020.
George Weiner MD, is a physician, scientist and founder and CEO LIRECAP, inc, that is based on technology discovered in his laboratory at the University of Iowa where he serves as Director of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, Professor of Internal Medicine and holds the Block Chair of Cancer Research. Weiner’s cancer research has been continually funded by the NCI since 1991. He received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University, his MD from The Ohio State University and training in Hematology, Oncology and Immunology at the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at the University of Iowa. Weiner has served in a number of leadership positions nationally. He is Past President of the Association of American Cancer Institutes and past chair of the NCI Committee that provides peer-review of the nation’s cancer centers. He currently chairs the External Advisory Boards for six other NCI designated cancer centers.
Jessica McDonough is a co-founder and VP at Attivare Tx, a new immunotherapy company developing technology from the Wyss Institute at Harvard. Jessica joined Attivare Tx in July of 2021 to develop innovative immunotherapies. Prior to joining Attivare, Jessica was a Business Development Lead at the Wyss Institute at Harvard from 2014-2021. Jessica was responsible for translating technologies in the areas of synthetic biology and molecular robotics. She also managed a venture capital alliance with Northpond Ventures. Prior to joining Wyss, Jessica worked at Decision Resources (now Clarivate) as a Principal in their custom consulting division. She worked with top pharmaceutical and biotech companies on over fifty engagements including topics such as therapeutic area landscapes, opportunity assessments, and valuations focusing on both the major and emerging markets. Jessica holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Cellular and Molecular Medicine. While at Hopkins, her research focused on prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and development of assays for sensitive detection of drug-resistant HIV variants. Jessica also holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
George Pell is the Principal and Chief Strategy Officer of Thirty-Six, an innovation studio bringing a series of ventures to life for advancing neuroscience, medical intelligence, and human potential. George brings over 20 years from this space, where emerging technologies are first crafted and brought to life, including several which have helped shape the landscape of AI for the life sciences, such as discovery, augmented intelligence, and other cognitive technologies. He has made a multi-billion dollar impact in a range of innovation, strategy, and transformation roles for some of the world’s largest companies in the most high stakes of circumstances. George has invested his most recent 14 years in the life sciences space, where he brings a multidiscipline of advanced biology together with discovery and intelligence technologies, for next-gen applications in neuroscience and precision medicine.
Karen Sherwood is Lead Genome Scientist and Director of Scientific Programs for the Genome Canada Transplant Consortium. She received her PhD degree in Edinburgh with post-doctoral research in gene sequencing and neuropathology in the UK and Canada.
Dr. Pallavi Sachdev is a Senior Director in Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Medicine withing the Neurology Business Group at Eisai, a human health care (hhc) company. Dr. Sachdev drives the development and execution of the clinical biomarker strategy across a diverse neurology pipeline spanning programs in dementia, sleep and epilepsy. During her time at Eisai, Dr. Sachdev has increasingly focused on bridging the translational gap between the nonclinical and clinical teams and global biomarker research activities across all stages of clinical development (from early phase - first-in-human and proof-of-concept studies, to late stage/registrational studies) across therapeutic areas including oncology and neurology. Her responsibilities include alignment of drug and diagnostic strategies to deliver tailored therapeutics. Previously, Dr. Sachdev was a scientist at The Rockefeller University focusing on cancer signaling networks, stem cell biology and systems biology. Dr. Sachdev received her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Mount Sinai-New York University School of Medicine and her B.S. from Cornell University. She has co-authored numerous research publications in the fields of cancer signaling networks and cancer genomics and presented at international scientific conferences focusing on precision medicine and big data.
Barbara Cahill is the Sr. Global Portfolio Manager for Immunohistochemistry, Consumables and Cytology at Epredia, a global precision cancer diagnostics company working to improve patient outcomes by providing groundbreaking technologies. Barbara is an accomplished marketer who has accelerated new product development initiatives in the life sciences and self-care industries for almost 20 years. Her experiences enable her to transform and lead with market disruptive technologies that personally and professionally align with Epredia’s mission and vision to improve lives by enhancing precision cancer diagnostics.
Reed has over 20 years of experience in the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries commercializing innovative products and solutions that are at the leading edge of technology. Reed sees the rapidly growing field of combining precision NGS-based diagnostics, including liquid biopsy, with targeted therapeutics and immunotherapies as one of the keystone opportunities of making cancer a manageable condition. The knowledge we have of the genome is growing rapidly, and leveraging these insights in the clinic is transforming the cancer care landscape. Reed has a degree in biochemistry from the University of Michigan.
After a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, she began her antibody discovery career at VHsquared, discovering and engineering a pipeline of VHH drug assets for oral delivery for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. She assisted the manufacturing scale-up and preclinical development of the lead VHH molecule (anti-TNF) through to Phase II clinical trials, implementing genetic biomarker analysis from responder and non-responder clinical samples. Marion joined Isogenica in 2019 to pursue further VHH and other scaffold discovery on a diverse array of targets, exploiting their function in more varied applications. She is now Associate Director of Discovery, project managing the delivery of both internal and partnered VHH discovery programs.
Stefan Pinkert, PhD is a Principal Scientist in the Oncology Bioinformatics at Merck Biopharma R&D, where he is responsible for the X- Omics Platform. In his academic career he worked at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry, the University Hospital of Düsseldorf and at the German Cancer Research Center. The Oncology Bioinformatics at Merck Biopharma R&D is supporting scientists in the preclinical and clinical development in the analysis of biomarker related questions.
Donald Atha received his undergraduate degree in chemistry in 1970 from UCSD in LaJolla and his doctoral degree in biochemistry in 1974 from UVA in Charlottesville. He studied hemoglobin as a postdoctoral fellow and instructor from 1974 to 1978 in the Department of Zoology at UT in Austin and plasma proteins as a staff fellow from 1978 to 1981 at the American Red Cross in Bethesda. From 1981 to 1987, Don continued work on heparin and antithrombin as a research associate at the Whitaker College of MIT and as an instructor in the Department of Pathology of Beth Israel Hospital. Since 1987, he has served as a research chemist at NIST in Gaithersburg, concentrating on developing methods and standards for clinical diagnostic assays including heparin, p53 single point mutations, fragile X syndrome and telomerase. Currently, Don is working to develop improved assays for the analysis of oxidative changes in DNA.
Jingjing Zhu is a senior research scientist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and has 12 years of experience working in the anti-cancer therapeutical target discovery and therapy development field. After obtaining her Ph. D. in Biomedicine at KU Leuven, Belgium. She joined Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, focusing on cancer immunotherapy and developing novel anti-tumor immune therapeutics.
Steve is currently Professor of Proteomics and Senior Fellow, UCD Conway Institute and past President of HUPO Steve graduated from Imperial College of Science and Technology (Imperial College London) with a joint honours degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry before completing a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. Subsequently, he was an Elmore Medical Research Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry in Cambridge University. His research team in University College Dublin is currently developing multiplexed protein biomarker measurements using multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry to support the translation of novel multiplexed blood protein biomarkers to clinical diagnostic tests. He founded the UCD spin out company, Atturos in late 2016 and was awarded UCD's Innovator of the Year in 2018. Atturos aims to develop and deliver advanced diagnostic tests to support better clinical decision making for better patient outcomes. In 2017 he was the lead organiser of the 16th Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) World Congress, which was held in Dublin and included a Gala Dinner at which former US Vice-President Joe Biden was guest speaker.
Ibrahim Jivanjee is Director of Product Management and Marketing at Arima Genomics. He brings more than a decade of experience in the field of genomics and holds a Bachelors in Molecular Biology from University of California, San Diego and a MBA from the University of Iowa.
Pamela Pulimeno has joined Lunaphore as Scientific Marketing Specialist in April 2020. She holds a PhD in Life Sciences from the University of Geneva, and she has an extensive experience in cancer and metabolic diseases. Before joining Lunaphore, Pamela worked at the HUG (CH), UCSF (USA) and Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health (USA). More recently she was responsible for the evaluation of scientific projects for several academic journals in the field of life sciences. At Lunaphore, she joined the Marketing and Communications Team bringing her scientific expertise in the assessment of scientific data and development of high-quality content.
