Greg A. Kirchenbaum received his B.S. with honors in Biology from Florida State University in 2006. He completed his doctoral training at the University of Colorado, Denver in 2013 under the mentorship of Lawrence J. Wysocki and studied surface IgM downmodulation on naïve follicular B cells. Dr. Kirchenbaum continued his training at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida and the Center for Vaccines and Immunology at the University of Georgia under the direction of Ted M. Ross where he characterized the humoral immune response elicited by influenza infection or vaccination in ferret and human models. Dr. Kirchenbaum joined the Research and Development department at Cellular Technology Limited in 2018 and has been studying the association between serum antibody reactivity, functional antibody affinity and underlying antigen-specific memory B cell compartments using the ImmunoSpot® platform.
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.
Dr. Ginette Serrero is Chief Executive Officer of Precision Antibody, a custom antibody development company, expert in the design, development, characterization and production of monoclonal antibodies for the treatment and diagnosis of human diseases. She draws on biotech management and research expertise in Oncology and biomarker discovery to guide the company's strategy in both the service division and R&D department for the development of biological targeted therapies with companion tissue and serum diagnostics for breast cancer. Her laboratory discovered Progranulin (GP88) as a marker of recurrence, drug resistance and tumor aggressiveness for several cancers including breast and lung cancer. This led to the development of two companion diagnostics that have been clinically validated for disease prognosis and monitoring of breast and lung cancer patients. She is a trained Biochemist with expertise in target discovery, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Oncology. She is Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center.
She is inventor on several worldwide patents for targets in Oncology and authored 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and reviews.
Zev’s nearly two-decade industry experience spans big pharma, life sciences tools and diagnostic companies where he led R&D teams, drug-discovery and product development projects. He is a biochemist by training with research background in protein phosphorylation, proteolysis and growth-factor signaling. Zev’s discoveries contributed to better understanding of the mechanism of ectodomain shedding and provided new insights into the regulatory role of extracellular phosphorylation. Zev led a broad range of research and development projects and has a successful track record of leveraging rigorous science to drive the development of new products aimed at facilitating research and speeding-up discovery. He earned his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel under the guidance of Prof. Shmuel Shaltiel and conducted his post-doctoral studies at the Children’s Hospital, Boston in the laboratory of Prof. Michael Klagsbrun – a growth-factors pioneer. Zev has authored over a dozen of peer-reviewed publications and presented at numerous scientific conferences.
Keith is a board-certified anatomic pathologist with diverse achievements in research and drug/diagnostic development. Leading Ultivue’s Assay Services Laboratory, he brings expertise in investigative pathology, multiplex microscopy and imaging, and digital pathology to our customers striving to realize the promise of personalized medicine. Most recently he was Senior Medical Director of Leica Biosystems, and prior to that he led and supported R&D, toxicology, biomarker, and clinical study teams in multiple therapeutic areas at Novartis and Biogen.
He earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Arizona, and MD and PhD in Molecular Biology from UCLA, where he discovered the molecular basis of DNA recognition by bHLH-PAS transcription factors. Following residency and postdoc at Stanford, his lab at UT Southwestern characterized the Naked cuticle (Nkd) gene family as feedback regulators of Wnt-beta catenin signaling.
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.
Daniel Enderle is Scientific Director at Exosome Diagnostics, focused on R&D, Product Development and early Companion Diagnostics in Europe. He worked on developing QIAGEN’s and Exosome Diagnostics’ shared exoRNeasy™ line of products that is used for isolation of exosomes from biofluids. Before joining the company in 2011, he received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Heidelberg and held academic appointments at the EMBL and the ETH Zurich.
Reinhard Ortmann is Director Oncology & Precision Diagnostics at QIAGEN and focuses on companion diagnostic commercialization. He is responsible for early companion diagnostic and drug launch preparation and alignment with QIAGEN’s pharmaceutical partners. Reinhard worked for many years in pharmaceutical companies, such as Johnson & Johnson and Chiron Biopharmaceutical, and held various sales and marketing positions covering multiple therapeutic areas. After joining the QIAGEN headquarters in Hilden/Düsseldorf in 2010, he established a number of collaborations between QIAGEN’s sales, marketing, medical and reimbursement teams with the equivalent teams in pharmaceutical companies.
Reinhard holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree and is a Graduate Economist.
Emmanouil Karteris
Dr Emmanouil Karteris is a Reader at Brunel University London, Head of Cancer Biomarkers and Cellular Endocrinology Lab (www.cbcel.org), and Departmental Director International for Life Sciences. He gained his BSc degree in Medical Biochemistry (University of Surrey, UK, 1995), MSc in Medical Genetics with Immunology (Brunel University, UK 1996) and his PhD (Warwick University, UK 2000). Dr Karteris has published 96 research manuscripts (h-index 33, i10-index:67) and presented over 100 abstracts in leading international conferences. He also has expertise IP law and in setting up clinical studies. His lab -in collaboration with oncologists nationwide- primarily works on the clinical utility of liquid biopsies, namely characterization and enumeration of circulating tumour cells, measurements of cfDNA and ctDNA, as well as RNA-sequencing analyses.
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.
Darrell Borger is Head of the Integrated Translational Technologies Laboratory in Takeda’s Oncology Drug Development Unit. With over a decade of experience in clinical research and the development of clinical testing laboratories in a large academic hospital, Darrell is now working to integrate diverse expertise in cancer biomarkers and pathology with promising technologies and informatics to drive novel drug development strategies in immune oncology. The goal is to provide a continuum of translational discovery biomarkers into early clinical evaluation.
Roy Baynes is Senior Vice President Global Clinical Development and Chief Medical Officer at Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, New Jersey. He was previously Senior Vice President of Oncology, Inflammation and Respiratory Therapeutics at Gilead Sciences and prior to that was Vice President Global Clinical Development and Therapeutic Area (TA) Head for Hematology / Oncology, at Amgen Inc. In the early years of his tenure at Amgen before becoming TA head of Hematology / Oncology in Clinical Development he was TA head for Hematology / Oncology in Global Medical Affairs. He graduated as a Medical Doctor and obtained a Master of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He has had a long and distinguished career in the haematology-oncology-and stem cell transplantation fields, including drug development, basic research, clinical practice, clinical research, teaching and administration. He is a member of many international societies, including the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and has authored some 150 publications. He has been recurrently named among America’s top physicians. Before joining Amgen in 2002, he was the Charles Martin Professor of Cancer Research at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, an NCI designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA.
Ronny Kellner studied biology at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen. He completed his PhD in the field of molecular plant-pathogen interaction at the MPI for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg and the Ruhr-University of Bochum. After several international projects in Germany and the UK focusing on microbiology, molecular biology and NGS data analysis, he joined QIAGEN in August 2020. Since then, he has been involved in developing the digital PCR assay portfolio. Daniel Enderle is Scientific Director at Exosome Diagnostics, focused on R&D, Product Development and early Companion Diagnostics in Europe. He worked on developing QIAGEN’s and Exosome Diagnostics’ shared exoRNeasy™ line of products that is used for isolation of exosomes from biofluids. Before joining the company in 2011, he received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Heidelberg and held academic appointments at the EMBL and the ETH Zurich.
Prof Sanz-Moreno received a degree in chemistry and a master's degree in biochemistry (University of Oviedo, Spain), followed by a PhD in chemical sciences (University of Cantabria). She joined the Institute of Cancer Research in London as a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow to work with Prof Chris Marshall. In 2008, she received the Applied Biosystems and EACR 40th Anniversary Research Award. In 2011, Victoria started her independent group and received a CRUK Career Development Fellowship at King's College London. In 2015, she was highly commended as CRUK Communications and Brand Ambassador. In 2017, Victoria was awarded the BSCB Women in Cell Biology Early Career Award Medal. The same year, she received a CRUK Senior Fellowship and was badged Werth Trust Fellow. In 2018, Victoria joined Barts Cancer Institute (BCI-QMUL) as Professor of Cancer Cell Biology. In 2019, she received The Distinguished Alumnus Award from Colegio Inmaculada (Asturias) and Paper of the Year Award at BCI.
Anna Pokorska-Bocci is an Associate Principal Scientist in Personalized Medicine at Debiopharm International, a mid-size pharma company based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She is responsible for the biomarker and diagnostic aspects of Debiopharm drug development programmes in oncology. She started her career in various biotech and drug development companies, mainly in the field of oncology. She has also worked in a British genomics think-tank, Population Health Genomics Foundation helping introducing novel molecular screening and diagnostic technologies into healthcare systems.
A. Pokorska-Bocci is a graduate from University Paris-Sud (France), and obtained a PhD degree in molecular genetics at Paris University.
Scott Reid heads up companion diagnostic services and strategic alliances at NeoGenomics. He has been with NeoGenomics since 2016 and previously covered Business Development for the New England territory. He has been working in oncology since graduate school with a focus on diagnostics and IVD commercialization that has included previous positions at LabCorp and Covance. Scott completed his PhD in Biochemistry and MBA at Duke University.
Marc van der Schee has close to 10 years of experience in the field of volatile biomarker research. During his PhD Marc pioneered the use of exhaled breath analysis in Lung Cancer, Asthma and Colorectal Cancer amongst others. For this work he received various awards including a Marie Curie Fellowship. His background spans both medical, epidemiological, chemical analytical and data-analysis aspects of biomedical research. By building on this expertise he designs and oversees all clinical trials within Owlstone Medical helping to collect data that drives product development and implementation into clinical practice. As a trained medical doctor Marc helps prioritise medical applications and is the primary interface between clinical partners and Owlstone. Marc holds a medical degree and a doctorate in Biomedical Sciences and obtained a PhD degree by studying the use of volatile biomarkers for disease diagnosis, monitoring and prognosis prediction.
BJ Kerns has more than thirty years of marketing and business development experience along with a successful track record in diagnostics. BJ has helped HTG penetrate the clinical research market and develop its diagnostic applications utilizing our unique qNPA system for clinically relevant gene expression signatures. Prior to joining HTG Kerns was the director of integrated solutions and molecular diagnostics at Promega Corp. Inc. A seasoned diagnostics executive, Kerns held several positions at Ventana Medical Systems Inc., including director of women’s health, director of strategic marketing and senior director of product technical support in operations. While at Ventana she launched the company’s first FDA-cleared companion diagnostic PATHWAY® HER-2. Kerns has also managed a variety of functions at BioGenex and Becton Dickinson, including business development, sales and marketing, and research and development.
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.
Mark Girardi has over 30 years of experience in life sciences, in vitro diagnostics, and medical devices commercialization and reimbursement. He has had roles in product management, sales and marketing, and most recently in strategy consulting.
Mr. Girardi joins us from GfK Health, a global consultancy and market research firm, where he was Senior Vice President responsible for the MedTech consulting practice. Prior to joining GfK, Mr. Girardi spent five years at Predictive Biosciences as VP of Sales and Marketing. He also served as Senior Director of Marketing at Z-Tech Medical where he was responsible for commercialization of the company’s breast cancer screening devices. As a Director of Marketing at Cytyc Corporation (now Hologic), he managed the worldwide launch of the Thin Prep Imaging System. Mark has also held senior marketing positions at Genzyme Genetics and Millipore.
Mr. Girardi received his BS in Chemistry from Merrimack College and an MS in Analytical Chemistry from the University of New Hampshire.
Bogdan Munteanu (PhD) completed his undergraduate and PhD studies in biochemistry and mass spectrometry at the University of Applied Sciences Mannheim (Germany). During this time, he developed standardized workflows for innovative MALDI-MS cell- based assay for drug discovery and tissue imaging MS platforms to study the in-situ target engagement of epigenetic drugs like Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors. In 2018 he joined Sanofi and is currently the Lab Head of the Center of Excellence for global imaging mass spectrometry drug and biomarker discovery platform at global DMPK. The platform major focus on early-safety biomarker discovery and target engagement evaluations. The activities are focused on standardization and improvement of method robustness and database implementation for untargeted biomarker evaluations.
Before joining Pieris Pharmaceuticals as Director Immuno-Oncology overseeing pre-clinical development of Pieris´s innovative pipeline projects, Dr. Zettl was Project Leader at Boehringer-Ingelheim from 2011, leading antibody programs in the field of Immuno-Oncology from early preclinical into clinical phases. During his PhD and postdoctoral studies, he worked in a variety of areas of cancer biology at the EMBL in Heidelberg Germany and at the MRC-LMB in Cambridge UK. Research topics covered molecular mechanisms of how oncolytic viruses exploit the host cytoskeleton and the impact of metallo-protease (TACE) activation on cytokine and growth factor signalling with implications for cancer and inflammatory disorders. Dr. Zettl authored numerous high impact publications and patents in the field of Immuno-Oncology.
Dr. Eike Staub started his bioinformatics career as a Ph.D. student in one of the first oncogenomic drug hunting companies, metaGen in Berlin. After a short academic research phase focusing on evolution of protein families and genome content in the post-human genome era as a group lead in the Computational Biology group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, he joined Altana Pharma to continue working on oncogenomics for drug research. In 2007 Eike joined Merck KGaA where he worked in various functions to leverage genome-scale data by bioinformatics algorithms, biostatistics, data mining & machine learning for oncology, from identification of drug targets to biomarker assessment in late clinical drug development.
Since 2015 he has been leading Oncology Bioinformatics in the Translational Medicine department at Merck KGaA, a team that is responsible for genome-scale data analysis from early pre-clinical research to late stage clinical development. His team is also committed to deliver computational infrastructure to enable Merck scientist to conduct biomarker research using self-service tools.
18 years in the Pharmaceutical Industry (Department Head at Merck-Serono) leading international projects of new anti-cancer drugs and biomarkers from discovery up to clinical trials.
Co-founder and CSO of Lykera Biomed, a biotech with innovative projects in therapy and diagnosis for cancer and excessive fibrosis. He is also Director of Innovation of Health & Biomedicine at Leitat Technological Center. Strong experience and expertise in monoclonal antibody, cell and molecular biology, and in vivo models of cancer progression, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Official EU-expert evaluator for H2020, Innowide, and Eurostars calls, both remotely and in Consensus Meetings in Brussels. Visiting scientist at The Scripps Research Institute, California and at the Institut de Recherches sur le Cancer, Paul Brousse Hospital, Paris. He has presented in scientific journals, book chapters, international conferences, and is co-inventor of 15 international patents.
Deya’s research focuses on biomarkers discovery and translational medicine in the areas of female infertility and gynaecological cancers. She has applied her expertise in inflammation, angiogenesis, vascular permeability, reproductive biology and cell to cell interactions to develop multicellular 3D models for use as tools in biomarker discovery and drug development. Her projects involve collaborations with the private sector to expedite validation of clinical diagnostic biomarkers and the development of new drug leads for targeted cancer therapy including Antibody Drug Conjugates and Exosomes. She is a co-PI of the Smart Expertise project CEAT-Cluster for Epigenomics and ADC therapeutics (£2.6M), where she leads the ADC programme. Deya is the South West Wales (Non-Clinical) lead within the Wales Cancer Research Centre, and Chair of Swansea University Medical School Research Ethics and Governance. She teaches within the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at Swansea University Medical School. Deya is passionate about patient participation In research engaging the public, from families to patients, with her work by hosting regular public engagement events.
