SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Dvir Aran, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Atul Butte Laboratory, Institute for Computational Health Sciences, University of California, San Francisco
I am a Gruss-Lipper postdoctoral fellow at Atul Butte’s lab at the Institute for Computational Health Sciences (ICHS), University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). I received my Ph.D. in Computational Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where I employed bioinformatic and machine learning tools to study epigenetic alterations in health and disease. My current focus is on employing public resources and computational cancer immunology methods for attaining better understanding of the tumor's microenvironment. Specifically, I aim to better understand immunoediting in solid tumors and its effect on the response to immunotherapy toward improving current treatment strategies.
Ellen M. Beasley, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Product & Services Research & Development, Business & Product Development, Genomic Health, Inc.
Ellen Beasley has over 20 years of product development experience in biotechnology and genomics sciences. She has successfully integrated bioinformatics, genetics and genomics platforms to advance life sciences instrument, diagnostics and therapeutics product discovery and development at Celera, Perlegen Sciences and Life Technologies. Since joining Genomic Health in 2013, Ellen has focused on the application of next-generation technologies, including sequencing and liquid-based biopsy, to discover and develop Genomic Health’s next generation of products to serve patients living with cancer. Ellen received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) and a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology from The University of Chicago.
Lynne T. Bemis, Ph.D., Chair, Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota
Lynne Bemis, Ph.D., is the Chair of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth Campus. She was formerly an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, where her research focus was in the area of extracellular cancer biomarkers and specifically microRNA. Following her move to Duluth, Minnesota, she initiated studies on a subset of noncoding RNA her laboratory had detected in the urine of ovarian cancer patients. These novel noncoding RNAs are now known as tRNA fragments, tRFs. The function of tRFs are just now being elucidated in the Bemis lab and elsewhere and are expected to be novel regulators of gene expression, a subset of which act like microRNAs, while still other tRFs function by regulating RNA binding proteins.
Andrew Brooks, Ph.D., COO, RUCDR Infinite Biologics; Associate Professor, Genetics, Rutgers University
Dr. Brooks is the Chief Operating Officer of RUCDR Infinite Biologics and Director of the Bionomics Research and Technology Center at Rutgers University. He is also one of the founding members of the Bioprocessing Solutions Alliance. Dr. Brooks is a molecular neuroscientist whose research focuses on deciphering the molecular mechanisms that underlie memory and learning. Dr. Brooks is a well-recognized genomicist and has been involved in the development and implementation of cutting-edge molecular-based technologies for nucleic acid and protein analyses.
Timothy Butler, Research Scientist, Paul Spellman Laboratory, Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health & Science University
Tim Butler is a sixth-year cancer biology graduate student in the lab of Paul Spellman at Oregon Health & Science University. Tim received his Bachelor of Science degree from Santa Clara University in 2010 where he won the Gerald and Sally DeNardo Senior Prize in Science research for his development of a pipeline for the analysis of RNA-Seq data in non-model organisms. In his graduate career he further developed his sequencing and bioinformatics experience, focusing predominantly on analyzing circulating-tumor DNA (ctDNA) from cancer patients initially as a means of liquid biopsy and more recently to better understand how tumors respond to treatment. Tim’s efforts in this space have led to the introduction of clinical ctDNA tests at the Knight Diagnostics Laboratory, OHSU’s CLIA sequencing lab. In his final push before graduating, Tim is generating data to support a clinical trial basing treatment decisions on ctDNA results.
Clinton Cario, Research Scientist, John S. Witte Laboratory, Division of Genetic and Cancer Epidemiology, University of California, San Francisco
Clinton Cario is a Doctoral Student in the lab of John Witte at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) who is interested in applying machine learning approaches to biological datasets. He received Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Biochemistry Molecular Biology in 2006 from Penn State, and a Master’s in 2010 from Johns Hopkins in Bioinformatics. His current research projects include the analysis of tumor heterogeneity from deep sequencing data and the use of cfDNA (i.e., “liquid biopsy”) in detecting, screening, and monitoring prostate cancer.
Stephen Y. Chan, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Center for Pulmonary Vascular Biology and Medicine; Associate Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Stephen Chan, M.D., Ph.D., graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowship training in Cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Chan currently directs the Center for Pulmonary Vascular Biology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Chan runs a basic science and translational research group studying the molecular mechanisms of pulmonary vascular disease and pulmonary hypertension (PH). To capitalize on the discipline of "network medicine," his research utilizes a combination of network-based bioinformatics with unique experimental reagents derived from genetically altered rodent and human subjects to accelerate systems-wide discovery in PH. His published findings were among the first to identify the systems-level functions of microRNAs (miRNAs) as a root cause of PH. Dr. Chan has also described novel roles of circulating plasma-based microRNAs in PH, in aerobic exercise, and in hypoxia-dependent cardiovascular diseases in general. The results now offer methods to identify persons at-risk for PH and develop therapeutic RNA targets.
Charles Chiu, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Laboratory Medicine and Medicine/Infectious Diseases; Director, UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center; Associate Director, UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, UCSF School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
Charles Chiu, M.D./Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at University of California, San Francisco, Director of the UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center (VDDC), and Associate Director of the UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory. He is a board-certified consulting infectious diseases physician at UCSF, and his practice is in both infectious diseases and clinical microbiology. Dr. Chiu received an M.D. and Ph.D. in biophysics from UCLA and subsequently completed an internal medicine residency, infectious diseases fellowship, and postdoctoral research at UCSF. He heads a translational research laboratory focused on clinical diagnostic next-generation sequencing assay development for infectious diseases and genomic analyses of emerging pathogens, including Borrelia burgdorferi, Ebola virus, and enterovirus D68. His work is supported by research grants from the NIH, Bay Area Lyme Disease Foundation, Global Lyme Alliance, USAID PREDICT program, UC Center for Accelerated Innovation, Sandler / Bowes Foundation, and the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine. Dr. Chiu has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, holds over 15 patents and patent applications, and serves on the scientific advisory board for Therabio, Karius, and Rubicon Genomics.
Kuo Ping Chiu, Ph.D., Associate Research Fellow, Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica
Kuo Ping Chiu got his Ph.D. in Microbiology from UC Davis in 1991 and did his postdoc at Harvard Medical School on Neurosciences during 1993-1996. His research career is tightly associated with biotechnologies. His Ph.D. research focused on developing in situ PCR methods to identify MMTV-infected cells, while his postdoctoral training was related to multiple colorimetric labeling of acetylcholine receptor subunit transcripts. At Bio-Rad, he developed kits for flow cytometry-based antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Later, he switched from wetlab to Bioinformatics and worked at GIS on developing paired-end ditag (PED) technology and methods for sequence data analysis. He moved back to Taiwan in 2008 to work at Academia Sinica on developing sequencing-related biotechnologies to facilitate cancer research. He now also teaches at universities. He is currently holding three U.S. patents related to PED technologies and recently published a book entitled Next-Generation Sequencing and Sequence Data Analysis.
Jian-Bing Fan, Ph.D., CEO, AnchorDx Corp.
Jian-Bing Fan, Founder and CEO, AnchorDx – a company that is developing NGS-based clinical diagnosis – has over 20 years of experience in human genome research and genomics technology development. As a Senior Director of Scientific Research, he played important roles in developing the BeadArray/NGS technology and a series of genomics products at Illumina for high-throughput genotyping, gene expression and methylation analysis, and led the Illumina Dx research efforts to develop highly sensitive and quantitative assays for use with medical specimens such as ctDNA. Previously, Dr. Fan was the Manager of Polymorphism Research at Affymetrix; he spearheaded the development of high-density oligonucleotide array technology and its application in large-scale SNP identification and genotyping. Dr. Fan received his Ph.D. in Genetics from Columbia University. He has authored more than 150 original articles, one book, 19 patents, and is currently an executive editor of Genomics and Editor-in-Chief, Genomics Data.
Gregory Faris, Ph.D., Program Manager, Optical Systems, Discovery Technologies, SRI International
Dr. Gregory W. Faris is a Program Manager in the Discovery Technologies Laboratory at SRI International. He has 35 years of experience with optics, lasers, spectroscopy, laser instrumentation, nonlinear optics, laser and optical sensors, and optical imaging. He has specialized in biomedical optics for the last 21 years, including work on in vivo imaging, microscopy, microfluidics, and optical label development. Dr. Faris received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in Applied Physics in 1987 and a BSE (summa cum laude) from Princeton University in 1980. Dr. Faris has over 60 publications in refereed journals and holds 15 patents. He was the founding editor of the Virtual Journal for Biomedical Optics and was deputy editor of Biomedical Optics Express.
Ajay Goel, Ph.D., Investigator/Professor & Director, Center for Gastrointestinal Research; Director, Center for Epigenetics, Cancer Prevention and Cancer Genomics, Baylor Research Institute and Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center, Baylor University Medical Center
Ajay Goel, Ph.D., is an Investigator/Professor, and Director for the Center for Gastrointestinal Research, and Director, Center for Epigenetics, Cancer Prevention and Cancer Genomics at the Baylor Research Institute, Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, TX. He is one of the top scientists in the world investigating botanical interventions. Dr. Goel has spent 20 years researching cancer and has been the lead author or contributor to over 200 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed international journals and several book chapters. He is currently researching the prevention of gastrointestinal cancers by developing disease biomarkers for the early detection of gastrointestinal cancers, and by using integrative and alternative approaches, including botanical products. Dr. Goel is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Gastroenterology Association and is on the international editorial boards of Gastroenterology, Clinical Cancer Research, Carcinogenesis, Epigenomics, PLoS One, Digestive Diseases and Sciences, World Journal of Gastroenterology and World Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology. Dr. Goel also performs peer-reviewing activities for more than 100 international scientific journals, and serves on various grant funding committees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Veterans Affairs Medical Centers, and other international funding agencies from Austria, UK, Czech Republic, Hungary, Australia and South Africa. His current research activities are actively funded by the National Cancer Institute and other federal and private research foundations.
Toumy Guettouche, Ph.D., Director, Early Development & Genetics Assay Development, Sequencing Unit, Roche Molecular Systems
Bio coming soon.
Andrew Hill, Graduate Research Fellow, Jay Shendure Laboratory, Genome Sciences, University of Washington
Andrew is a second-year graduate student and NSF graduate research fellow in Jay Shendure's lab in the University of Washington Department of Genome Sciences. Prior to coming to UW, Andrew was a research assistant in Daniel MacArthur's lab at the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital working with large-exome sequencing datasets. Andrew holds a bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Washington.
Michael Kazinski, Senior Director, Molecular Pre-Analytical Technologies, QIAGEN
His responsibilities include the global management of QIAGEN´s nucleic acid purification portfolio and leading the Liquid Biopsy program in QIAGEN’s Life Science business area. Michael Kazinski has a degree in biochemical engineering and has over 20 years’ experience in various management positions in pharmaceutical, biotech and contract manufacturing industry.
Kendall Van Keuren-Jensen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Neurogenomics, TGen
Dr. Van Keuren-Jensen has a Master’s degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Kansas and received her Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Stony Brook University at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. She is an Associate Professor in the Neurogenomics Division at TGen in Phoenix, Arizona, where she is also Co-Director of the TGen Center for Noninvasive Diagnostics. The work in her laboratory focuses on identifying circulating molecular information that can aid in the diagnosis of Central Nervous System injury and disease.
Kiran K. Khush, M.D., MAS, FACC, Associate Professor, Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine
Dr. Kiran Khush is a transplant cardiologist and Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University. Dr. Khush focuses on clinical and translational research in the field of heart transplantation, and has received research grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, and the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. Her research focuses on the evaluation and selection of donors for heart transplantation; the pathogenesis of post-transplant complications, including acute rejection and cardiac allograft vasculopathy; and non-invasive diagnosis of post-transplant complications using cell-free DNA technology.
Xiaohe Liu, Ph.D., Senior Scientist & Co-Leader, Rare Cell Technology Program, Biosciences Division, SRI International
Dr. Liu has more than 10 years of research experience in immunology, cancer biology and infectious diseases, and has unique expertise in immunofluorescent technologies, including high-content imaging, flow cytometry (FACS) and a high-speed Fiber-optic Array Scanning Technology (FAST) for rare cell detection. His team is actively developing new tools for detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and other rare circulating biomarkers for disease diagnosis and prognosis. He is also part of SRI’s Comprehensive Screening Center, participating in NCI’s Chemical Biology Consortium for discovery of novel cancer therapeutics. His work is supported by grants and contracts from NIH, DARPA, TRDRP and other funding agents.
Nancy Monson, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Neurology and Neurotherapeutics & Department of Immunology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Since 1999, Dr. Monson has been recognized as a pioneer in the unrelenting pursuit of innovative ways to move us closer to a world free of multiple sclerosis. Nancy was rigorously trained as a B cell biologist and immunogeneticist and is currently an Associate Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. Nancy’s passion and expertise have brought new tools into the clinical setting that have resulted in a high-precision test in which a patient’s antibody genes can reveal whether or not that person will develop multiple sclerosis in the future. More recently, her laboratory has discovered that these antibodies bind to the brain. Her eyes are now fixed on the horizon to develop an innovative line of therapeutics based on these antibodies and their brain targets that will revolutionize strategies for treating MS and the broader landscape of neurodegenerative disorders.
Rolf Muller, Ph.D., CEO, BioFluidica, Inc.
Rolf Muller is a biotechnology leader combining science and business knowledge to build and grow successful technology companies that further healthcare and the field of personalized medicine. He has structured and guided highly efficient multidisciplinary research and commercial teams through funding, to product development, and successful product launch into global markets. Prior to joining BioFluidica he was the Founder and President of Biomatrica, which he developed from an idea to be a global leader in biopreservation technologies for diagnostic and health care companies. Over the last 16 years he has been involved in analyzing markets and developing strategies to position biotechnologies to maximize value. He has interacted with most of the major pharma and biotechnology companies to obtain funded development contracts, joint projects, and partnerships. In addition to raising successfully capital from investors he also raised non-dilutive capital from CDC, NCI, NIH, DARPA, In-Q-Tel and DOD. He obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Pasteur Institute.
Geoff Otto, Ph.D., Senior Director, Molecular Biology & Sequencing, Foundation Medicine
At Foundation Medicine, Geoff Otto (Senior Director, Molecular Biology & Sequencing) is currently leading the lab responsible for the research, development and optimization of clinically validated, targeted next-generation DNA and RNA sequencing assays to enable comprehensive genomic profiling of conventional formalin fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues and liquid biopsy samples from patients with cancer. Prior to joining Foundation, Geoff worked for Pacific Biosciences developing a single-molecule DNA sequencing system. Geoff received a BA degree from Cornell University in Cell Biology and a Ph.D. at Stanford University in Microbiology and Immunology where he researched the regulation of translation initiation by the Hepatitis C Virus IRES.
Pamela Paris, Ph.D., Professor of Urology, Department of Urology, University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Pamela L. Paris is a Professor at UCSF’s Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center. She conducts translational cancer genomics research. The overarching goal is to identify predictive and prognostic biomarkers. A major constraint in studying advanced cancer is the limited accessibility to metastatic tissue. As a result, Dr. Paris began working with circulating tumor cells (CTCs) back in 2005. Current CTC research in the Paris laboratory is focused on CTC platform development and pairing with downstream genomic applications to make CTCs a vital part of personalized medicine.
Jamie Platt, Ph.D., MB(ASCP), Founder & Managing Director, BRIDGenomics, LLC
Dr. Platt received her Ph.D. in Molecular & Cellular Biology from Oregon State University and completed postdoctoral training in population genetics at the University of California, Berkeley. She is an experienced leader in early adoption strategies, transitioning emerging technologies to regulated molecular clinical diagnostics. During her 15 years in clinical diagnostics, Dr. Platt has spearheaded development, validation and commercialization of more than 30 molecular diagnostic assays across Infectious Disease, Women’s Health, Genetics, Genomics, and Oncology, with at least 18 commercially available tests built on NGS technology. Her patent portfolio includes methods on HIV/HTLV genotyping, NGS library preparation, and NGS-based Microbial Identification.
Steven Prawer, Ph.D., D.Sc., Professor of Physics, School of Physics, University of Melbourne
Steven Prawer is Professor of Physics at the University of Melbourne, and has just finished his terms as the inaugural head of the Melbourne Materials Institute (MMI), a multidisciplinary research initiative dedicated to using advanced materials science and technology to address problems of global importance. He has published more than 300 papers and has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Lady Davis Visiting Professorship, The David Syme Research Prize, a Fulbright Senior visiting fellowship, visiting fellowship at Woolfson College in Oxford, the Royal Society of Victoria Research medal and in 2010 he was elected to the Australian Academy of Science. In 2010 he joined the team of Bionic Vision Australia, one of Australia’s most prestigious national projects dedicated to the development of a bionic eye. Using his knowledge of advanced materials and processing he leads the team to develop the high-density electrode array plus encapsulation strategy capable of delivering a high-acuity device which will enable profoundly blind people to once again be able to recognize the faces of loved ones and read large print.
Siddarth Rawal, M.D., COO, Circulogix Inc.; Clinical Research Associate, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami
Through my extensive experience and work in the field of circulating tumor cells at University of Miami, I co-founded Circulogix Inc. to develop a robust circulating tumor cell capture and analysis platform that would help play a transformative role in cancer patient management. My clinical background coupled with a strong understanding of computer-aided design (CAD) modeling, 3D printing and automation engineering has provided me the opportunity to work in different areas of research, such as cancer biology, nanotechnology and organs-on-chip to develop exciting translational technologies.
Lidia C. Sambucetti, Ph.D., Senior Director, Cancer Research Technologies, SRI International Biosciences Division
Lidia C. Sambucetti, Ph.D., Senior Director of SRI’s Cancer Research Technologies has over 25 years of experience in cancer research and development and a longstanding interest in discovery of novel therapeutics and diagnostics through the study of innovative targets and experimental agents. She manages biomarker discovery using SRI’s proprietary FASTcell™ platform for liquid biospsy for cancer and HIV. She also coordinates drug discovery activities as the Principal Investigator for SRI’s Specialized Center for the NCI’s Chemical Biology Consortium and serves as PI for SRI’s contract with NCI’s Cancer Prevention and Biomarker Program. Prior to SRI she worked at biotechnology companies, Telik Inc. and Xenogen Corp. and at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, where she led the team that produced a novel drug candidate, Farydak, now approved for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma. Her work illustrates her ability to translate innovative concepts into novel diagnostic and therapeutic products.
Judi Smith, MS, Vice President, In Vitro Diagnostics Regulatory and Quality, Precision for Medicine
Judi Smith, MS, is the Vice President, In Vitro Diagnostics Regulatory and Quality, at Precision for Medicine. She has worked in the medical products regulatory submissions and approvals, quality, and clinical trial areas for over 30 years. In her role, she oversees the group responsible for the full range of in vitro diagnostic and blood screening assays (IVDs) services. These include regulatory strategy, analytical, and clinical study designs; protocol development; all FDA pre-market and post-market submissions; quality system establishment and auditing per FDA Quality System Regulation; and clinical laboratory setup per Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (CLIA) regulations. In addition, the group provides development and management of clinical trials for these products, the data from which are used in regulatory submissions.
Steven A. Soper, Ph.D., Professor, Biomedical Engineering & Chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Prof. Steven A. Soper received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1989 followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked on single-molecule detection for high-speed sequencing of the human genome. In 1991, he joined the faculty at Louisiana State University (LSU) within the Department of Chemistry, where he filled the William H. Pryor Distinguished Chair of Chemistry. Prof. Soper also held joint appointments in the Mechanical Engineering Department and Department of Biological Sciences. While at LSU, he founded the Center for BioModular Multi-Scale Systems for Precision Medicine, which has as its primary charge to develop enabling and transformative tools for making health-related measurements from rare disease markers, such as liquid biopsy markers, with full process automation directly at the Point-of-Care. This Center has recently been awarded funding from the National Institutes of Health as part of their Biotechnology Resource Center Program (funded through the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering). Prof. Soper is currently a Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Prof. Soper also holds an appointment at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Ulsan, South Korea, where he is a World Class University Professor. He is also serving as a Science Advisor for a number of major worldwide companies, such as Roche Diagnostics and EMD Millipore. Prof. Soper is currently the Editor of the Americas for the Analyst and on the Editorial Board for Journal of Fluorescence and Journal of Micro- and Nanosystems. Prof. Soper is also serving as a permanent Member of the Nanotechnology study panel with the National Institutes of Health. As a result of his efforts, Prof. Soper has secured extramural funding totaling >$67M and has published over 315 manuscripts (h index = 59) and is the author of 12 patents. He is also the founder of a startup company, BioFluidica, which is marketing devices for the isolation and enumeration of circulating tumor cells. His list of awards includes Chemical Instrumentation by the American Chemical Society, the Benedetti-Pichler Award for Microchemistry, Fellow of the AAAS, Fellow of Applied Spectroscopy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, R&D 100 Award, Distinguished Masters Award at LSU and Outstanding Scientist/Engineer in the state of Louisiana in 2001. Finally, Prof. Soper has granted 50 Ph.D.s and 5 MS degrees to students under his mentorship. He currently heads a group of 15 researchers.
Rebecca (Becky) Suttmann, MS, Senior Scientific Researcher, Oncology Biomarker Development, Genentech, Inc.
Rebecca “Becky” Suttmann, MS, is a research scientist with solid industry background in immunology, cell biology and biomarker development. Her current work at Genentech includes developing oncology diagnostics strategies that involve identification and analysis of circulating tumor events. Ms. Suttmann has happily spent her career in the research labs at Genentech, Roche and Syntex.
Muneesh Tewari, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Internal Medicine and Biomedical Engineering & Ray and Ruth Anderson-Laurence M. Sprague Memorial Research Professor, University of Michigan Health System
Dr. Tewari earned an M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1997, where he worked with Dr. Vishva Dixit on mechanisms of apoptosis for his thesis research. He then completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Hospitals and a Medical Oncology clinical fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He subsequently trained in systems biology and genetics at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School, as a postdoctoral fellow bridging the labs of Dr. Marc Vidal and Dr. Gary Ruvkun. Dr. Tewari joined the faculty of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in 2005 where he began an independent research program studying microRNAs and cancer. In 2008, Dr. Tewari's laboratory reported that microRNAs are released from cancer cells into the bloodstream where they circulate in a highly stable form. This has led to burgeoning interest in circulating microRNAs as biomarkers for cancer and other diseases. His laboratory has gone on to study the biochemistry of extracellular microRNAs (including mechanisms that stabilize them in the extracellular environment), to develop fundamental understanding pertinent to developing microRNA-based disease biomarker approaches, and to advance methodology for highly sensitive and reproducible measurement of extracellular microRNAs. He also currently leads an NIH-funded U01 team focused on performing discovery and establishing reference profiles of extracellular RNAs using next-generation sequencing methods. In the course of this research, Dr. Tewari has become inspired to develop a next generation of biomarker approaches for human health and disease that will involve serial monitoring at high-time resolution at drastically lower cost than is currently possible. This will require both fundamental research on biomarkers and their relationship to physiology, as well as technology development grounded in advances in engineering and the physical sciences. In 2014, Dr. Tewari moved to the University of Michigan, where he is pursuing this inspiration as a tenured faculty member in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, in the Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, and in the interdisciplinary Biointerfaces Institute.
Chen-Hsiung Yeh, Ph.D., CSO, Circulogene Theranostics
Dr. Chen-Hsiung Yeh received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Rutgers University, and completed his postdoctoral training at Washington University School of Medicine at St. Louis. He has 20 years of experience in the biotech pharmaceutical and diagnostic clinical laboratory service industries. Currently, he is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Circulogene Theranostics. He has held senior management positions in various companies including Vice President of Molecular Testing at Atherotech Diagnostics Lab; General Manager at Response Genetics; Scientific Director at Quest Diagnostics; and Principal Investigator at Pfizer. His expertise and experience include liquid biopsy, molecular diagnostics, advanced technology, and drug discovery. He is an author and inventor of more than 40 publications and patents.