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Speaker Biographies   

Edward Abrahams, PhD
Executive Director
Personalized Medicine Coalition

Edward Abrahams, PhD, executive director of the Personalized Medicine Coalition—a non-profit educational and advocacy group representing diverse members with a interest in advancing medical progress through the adoption of personalized medicine concepts and products—has extensive experience in industry, academia, and government. As former executive director of the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Association, Abrahams managed all aspects of the Association, including public advocacy, media relations, and educational programs, tripling its size and revenues in three years. He also spearheaded the successful effort that led to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's investment of $200 million to commercialize biotechnology in that state. Previously, he had been assistant vice president for Federal Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, and also held a senior administrative position at Brown University. Before becoming a university administrator, Abrahams worked seven years for the United States Congress, including as a legislative assistant to Senator Lloyd Bentsen and as an economist for the Joint Economic Committee under the chairmanship of Congressman
Lee Hamilton.
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Clara Bloomfield, MD
Distinguished University Professor
William G. Pace III Professor of Cancer Research
Cancer Scholar and Senior Advisor
The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute

After serving as director of Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center from1997 to July 2003, Bloomfield became senior advisor to Ohio State’s cancer program and the charter member of the OSU Cancer Scholars Program, which is designed to help recruit and retain senior cancer investigators of international stature. Bloomfield is renowned for her more than three decades of research in adult leukemia and lymphoma. This research has been described in more than 600 publications and has helped change standards of treatment. Bloomfield earned her MD from the University of Chicago and completed training in internal medicine and medical oncology at the University of Minnesota, where she became a full professor in seven years. In 1989, she became professor of Medicine and chief of the Division of Oncology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, as well as chair of the Division of Medicine at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. She came to Ohio State in 1997, and in 2000 was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. At Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, she serves as cancer scholar and senior adviser. She is also a member of the Molecular Biology and Cancer Genetics Program, a professor of Internal Medicine, and holder of the William Greenville Pace III Endowed Chair in Cancer Research.
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Michael Christman, PhD
President and CEO
Coriell Institute for Medical Research

Michael F. Christman, PhD, was appointed as president and chief executive officer of the Coriell Institute for Medical Research in June 2007. In the last year, he has initiated the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative, a major research study designed to take an evidence-based approach to determining the utility of using genome information in the clinic.

Christman is an expert in genetics and genomics and most recently served as professor and founding chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomics for Boston University School of Medicine. He has also served as associate professor, Department of Microbiology, University of Virginia; assistant professor, University of California at San Francisco, Department of Radiation Oncology; and was a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellow at M.I.T. Christman received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry with honors from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1981 and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985.
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Albert de la Chapelle, MD, PhD
Distinguished University Professor
Human Cancer Genetics Program
The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute

Albert de la Chapelle, MD, PhD, is a distinguished university professor and cancer scholar at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has served as head of the Folkhälsan Institute of Genetics, and chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of Helsinki, Finland. In addition, he has served as the head of the Division of Human Cancer Genetics, Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, Ohio State’s College of Medicine and Public Health; director, Human Cancer Genetics Program, Comprehensive Cancer Center and Arthur G. James Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute; and director, Ohio State’s Division of Human Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine.

With clinical training in endocrinology and hematology and board certification in internal medicine and clinical genetics, de la Chapelle has conducted clinical, translational and basic research in human genetics. He is best known for his discovery of some 15 disease genes, including the human mismatch repair genes and their role in cancer.

Dr. de la Chapelle is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has received numerous honors and awards in the United States, Finland, and elsewhere. In Finland, he is a member and honorary member of its senior Academy of Sciences and Letters. He also is a fellow (“1 of 12”) of the Academy of Finland. He was the first M.D. ever to receive this highest scientific honor of the country. He holds honorary doctorates at the University of Oulu and the University of Uppsala. Among his other awards are the Anders Jahre Prize for Medicine (University of Oslo) and the Phoenix-Anni Verdi Award for Genetic Research (Italy), the Mauro Baschirotto Award for research achievement (the European Society of Human Genetics) and the Allan Award from the American Society of Human Genetics. He is a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. He is a “highly cited” author in Molecular Biology and Genetics, according to the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia.
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Anthony Dennis, PhD
President and CEO
BioOhio

Anthony J. Dennis, PhD, an entrepreneur, microbiologist, technology advocate and native Ohioan, became president and chairman of the Board of the Edison BioTechnology Center, the predecessor organization to BioOhio, in January 2002.
After receiving bachelor's (1970) and doctoral (1973) degrees in microbiology from The Ohio State University at age 25, he began to work for Battelle in Columbus, first as an entry-level researcher and eventually as vice president for biotechnology. During his years at Battelle, Dennis started two companies in his spare time-Tech 2000 and Electra, both in the then emerging field of computer technology. He sold Tech 2000 for profit and then served from 1988 to 1990 as president and founder of IntraCel, a biotech company operating in Geneva, Switzerland, licensing technology to several major pharmaceutical companies including Serono in Italy and Laboratories Fournier in France.

He returned to the U.S. to serve as vice president for worldwide R&D and new products at Tastemaker (then a JV between Hercules and Mallinckrodt.) Dennis then co-founded Nutri-Logics, Inc., where he acted as president through two rounds of start-up funding. He concluded his day-to-day responsibilities at Nutri-Logics in 2000 when the company was moved to San Francisco.

Simultaneous to the founding of Nutri-Logics, Dennis was co-founding another startup, BIO-NOVA, in Portland, Ore., where he served as executive vice president and director until joining BioOhio.
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Steven Gabbe, MD
Senior Vice President for Health Sciences
The Ohio State University
Chief Executive Officer
The Ohio State University Medical Center

Steven Gabbe, MD, joined The Ohio State University July 1, 2008, as senior vice president for Health Sciences and chief executive officer of The Ohio State University Medical Center. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. He completed an internship in medicine at New York Hospital and a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the Boston Hospital for Women in 1975.

Gabbe has served on the faculties of the University of Southern California, the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He was professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine between 1987 and 1996, and held similar positions at the University of Washington School of Medicine from 1996 to 2001. Gabbe was dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine for seven years prior to returning to Ohio State as senior vice president.

Gabbe is an international expert on high-risk pregnancies and has authored more than 160 peer-reviewed articles and more than 70 book chapters. He is associate editor of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and has served on the editorial boards of 15 other publications. He is senior editor of one of the leading textbooks in the field: Obstetrics, Normal and Problem Pregnancies, and he has co-authored five other books. Gabbe is a member of the Institute of Medicine and co-chairs the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.
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Maura Gillison, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Oncology
School of Medicine
Johns Hopkins University

Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, is an associate professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore, Md. She is a member of the divisions of Viral Oncology (primary), Aerodigestive Malignancies, and Cancer Prevention and Control. Gillison is also a member of the Departments of Epidemiology and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Upon graduating from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1991, Gillison completed her internship in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. She then trained in oncology at Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Cancer Center and received a doctoral degree in Clinical Investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2001.

Gillison began her research career studying the role of HPV in the pathogenesis of oral cancers. Her work was instrumental in establishing an etiologic role for HPV at this anatomic site. Gillison’s work has spanned the gamut from identifying risk factors for and natural history of oral HPV infection, to identifying risk factors and cofactors for HPV-associated cancer, to clarifying the clinical and prognostic implications of a diagnosis of HPV-associated oral cancer, and developing and completing clinical trials of HPV-specific, targeted immunotherapy in human subjects. Gillison is a recipient of the prestigious Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award and her research has been cited as one of the most important cancer advances in the history of Johns Hopkins Oncology Center and by the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2007.
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Geoffrey Ginsburg, MD, PhD
Director, Center of Genomic Medicine
Duke University

Geoffrey S. Ginsburg,MD, PhD, is the founding director of the Center for Genomic Medicine in the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy. He is also professor of Medicine and of Pathology at Duke University Medical Center.

Ginsburg received his MD and PhD in biophysics from Boston University. He completed an internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Mass. Subsequently, he pursued postdoctoral training in clinical cardiovascular medicine at Beth Israel Hospital and in molecular biology at Children’s Hospital as a Bugher Foundation Fellow of the American Heart Association. In 1990, he joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School where he was director of Preventive Cardiology and led a laboratory in applied genetics of cardiovascular disease. In 1997, he joined Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., as senior program director for Cardiovascular Diseases. In 2000, he was appointed vice president of Molecular and Personalized Medicine at Millennium, where he was responsible for developing pharmacogenomic strategies for therapeutics, as well as biomarkers for disease and their implementation, in the drug development process. He assumed his current position in the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy in September 2004, and, in 2006, was also appointed co-director, Duke Translational Medicine Institute. His research interests are in the development of novel paradigms for developing and translating genomic information into medical practice and the integration of personalized medicine into health care.
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Jeffrey Gulcher, MD, PhD
CSO and Co-founder, deCODE Genetics

Jeffrey Gulcher, MD, PhD, has served as Chief Scientific Officer of deCODE Genetics since October 2003. Previously, he served as vice president, Research and Development and co-founded deCODE in August 1996. Gulcher was on staff in the Department of Neurology at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Mass. and Harvard University Medical School from June 1993 to October 1998. He received his PhD and MD from the University of Chicago in 1986 and 1990, respectively, and completed his neurology residency at the Longwood Program of the Neurology Department of the Harvard Medical School in 1996.
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Rebecca Jackson, MD
Professor of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
The Ohio State University Medical Center

Rebecca Jackson, MD, is an internationally recognized expert in the development and treatment of osteoporosis. She was one of the first investigators to describe how resistance training may prevent the effects of this bone-thinning disease. In addition, she and her colleagues were involved in one of the landmark studies examining the role of bisphosphonates – then a new class of medication – in the treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Jackson later participated, and was lead author in, a clinical trial within the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) to determine the efficacy of taking vitamin D, along with calcium, to help prevent osteoporosis.

The bulk of Jackson’s work over the past 10 years has been focused on a new set of questions for a study that is on the forefront of genetic epidemiology. She is the principal investigator for “GenomeWide Association Study to Identify Genetic Components of Hip Fracture,” a new study that was awarded a $4.1 million grant earlier this year from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In collaboration with investigators from the University of Washington and the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Arizona,

Jackson and her colleagues will look across the entire genome to identify differences in women who experience hip fractures and those who do not. Additionally, she is the co-principal investigator for the Center for Clinical and Translational Science. This center was created with funds from the $34.1 million Clinical and Translational Science Award. Only 30 academic medical centers in the country received the award with the directive to improve the translational research infrastructure to speed the discovery process and improve patient care.
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Joseph Jasinski, PhD
IBMDistinguished Engineer
Program Director
Healthcare and Life Sciences Institute
IBMResearch

Joseph Jasinski, PhD, is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and program director for Healthcare and Life Sciences Research at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne N.Y. In this role, he is responsible for developing strategies and coordinating research efforts across IBM's Research Division in areas ranging from the use of information technology in payer/provider healthcare to computational studies in molecular biology.

Prior to his current position, Jasinski was worldwide operations manager for IBM Life Sciences, responsible for day-to-day operations and strategy for one of IBM's fastest growing new businesses. He has also served as the senior manager of the Computational Biology Center at IBM Research and managed and carried out research in nanotechnology, materials chemistry and chemical kinetics.

Jasinski graduated from Dartmouth College in 1976 with an AB in mathematics and chemistry. He received a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University in 1980. Following post-doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the IBM Thomas J.Watson Research Center as a research staff member in 1982. Jasinski is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has authored or co-authored more than 50 scientific papers, and holds two patents.
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Paul Keckley, PhD
Executive Director
Deloitte Center for Health Solutions

Paul Keckley, PhD., is executive director for the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions (the Center), a part of Deloitte & Touche USA LLP. With a distinguished 30-year career in health services research in the private sector and academic medicine, he is a health economist and policy expert, author, and sought after speaker.
Prior to joining Deloitte, Keckley served in senior leadership roles at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, including oversight of domestic and international joint ventures, development of the Vanderbilt Center for Integrative Health, implementation of evidence-based practice guidelines for acute and ambulatory operations, and others. As executive director of the Vanderbilt Center for Evidence-based Medicine (VCEBM), he was principal investigator for industry and government sponsored studies that focused on applications of evidence-based medicine in pay for performance and consumerism. He was associate professor in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and adjunct professor of Health Management at the Owen Graduate School of Business’s healthcare MBA and MD-MBA programs.

Before joining Vanderbilt, Keckley served as chairman of the Board of Interdent, a California dental practice management company; chief executive officer of EBM Solutions, a developer of evidence-based guideline software founded by Vanderbilt, Duke, Emory and Washington University-St. Louis; chief executive officer of Aveta (formerly the IPA Management subsidiary of PhyCor Inc.), and principal of The Keckley Group, a strategic planning consulting practice that served 1,200 U.S. provider organizations and health plans.

He received a BA from Lipscomb University, his MA/PhD from Ohio State University, and completed a fellowship in economic policy at Oxford University.
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Caroline Kovac, PhD
Managing Director
Burill and Company

Caroline Kovac, PhD, joined Burrill & Company after retiring from IBM, where she was responsible for the strategic direction of IBM's global healthcare and life sciences business. She led a team in developing the latest information technology solutions and services, establishing partnerships and overseeing IBM investment within the healthcare, pharmaceutical and life sciences markets. In more than 20 years at IBM, Kovac held a number of executive management positions, including vice president at IBM Research, where she was instrumental in launching the Computational Biology Center and the massive Blue Gene supercomputer project. Starting with only two employees as an emerging business unit in the year 2000, Kovac successfully grew IBM's life sciences business unit into a multi-billion dollar business, and one of IBM's most successful ventures to date with more than 1,500 employees worldwide.

Her main focus at Burrill is developing and executing investment strategies for leading edge technologies that are contributing to the transformation of medicine and healthcare, including: personalized medicine, the use of IT in health care, stem cell research, medical devices and diagnostics, and bio-nanotechnology. In addition, she works as part of the Burrill International Group team, building the company's life science focus on emerging economies such as China, India, Malaysia and the Middle East.
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Lawrence Lesko, PhD, FCP
Director, Office of Clinical Pharmacology
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
Food and Drug Administration

Lawrence J. Lesko, PhD, FCP, has been the director of the Office of Clinical Pharmacology in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 1995. The main focus of his Office is the translational analysis of dose-response and PK-PD data for the purposes of optimizing dosing and the benefit/risk ratio of FDA-approved drugs, the use of PK and biomarkers to assist in dosing adjustments for drug-drug interactions, special populations (e.g., renal patients) and other patient subsets defined by pharmacogenomics, individualization of drug therapy using plasma drug levels, and the application of quantitative methods such as disease state progression models and simulations to design clinical trials. Outside the FDA, Lesko has served as president of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (2004-2006). Prior to joining the FDA, he was a faculty member in academia for more than 15 years, most recently at the University of Maryland. Lesko has directed clinical pharmacology laboratories at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and was vice-president of PharmaKinetics Laboratories, a contract research organization.
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Edison Liu, MD
Executive Director, Genome Institute of Singapore
Professor of Medicine, National University of Singapore
Executive Director, Singapore Cancer Syndicate

Edison Liu, MD, graduated from Stanford University and its medical school. He received residency training at Washington University, Oncology training at Stanford University, and post-doctoral training in molecular oncogenesis at the University of California. From 1987-96, he was professor of Medicine, Biochemistry and Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, and director of the Specialized Program of Research Excellence in Breast Cancer. From 1996-2001, Liu was the division director of Clinical Sciences (intramural program) at the National Cancer Institute. In 2001, he became the founding executive director of Genome Institute of Singapore and professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. Liu’s research focused on molecular biology of breast cancer and recently, cancer genomics. He has received the Rosenthal Award from the American Association of Cancer Research and the Brinker International Award from the Susan Komen Foundation for his breast cancer research.
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Rajiv Mahadevan
Director of Business Development
23andMe, Inc.

Rajiv Mahadevan joined 23andMe in 2007 and manages business development activities for the company. He brings an international background in strategy consulting, sales, business development and program management. Prior to 23andMe he spent several years at Amgen, primarily supporting the development and commercialization of denosumab, a novel bone therapeutic tested in clinical trials across 50 countries covering nearly 20,000 patients. His experience also includes stints at the Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk, software company Aftermind, and strategy consultancy Arthur D. Little. Rajiv is passionate about the company's mission to empower individuals to accelerate research, enabling the creation of safer, more effective and highly targeted treatments for both common and rare conditions. He holds a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, and a MBA from Stanford University.
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Clay Marsh, MD
Professor and Director
Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine
The Ohio State University

Clay Marsh, MD, is the director of The Ohio State University Medical Center's Center for Critical Care and Respiratory Medicine, division director of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, and associate director for lung research at the Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute.

He graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in biology in 1981, and then received his MD from West Virginia University School of Medicine in 1985. Marsh came to Ohio State’s Medical Center in 1985 to complete his residency.

Much of Marsh's focus lies in leading one of the Medical Center’s six Signature Programs – Critical Care – and the newly established Center for Critical Care and Respiratory Medicine at Ohio State. The Center for Critical Care and Respiratory Medicine will focus on personalized health care, aimed at specializing treatment for each patient, while shifting care from disease management to disease prevention. With a mission to advance knowledge through discovery and process-based research, clinical care and education, the multi-disciplinary center will work to provide innovative solutions for patients undergoing critical care and for those with lung disease.
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Bruce Quinn, MD, PhD, MBA
Senior Health Policy Specialist
Foley Hoag LLP

Bruce Quinn, MD, PhD, MBA, formerly the contractor medical director for the California Medicare Part B program, practices within Foley Hoag’s Government Strategies practice, where he focuses on Medicare coverage and payment matters for new technologies.

Quinn is a national leader in the areas of Medicare coverage and payment, claims and billing, and Medicare contractor reform processes. He works with companies, providers and venture capital investors to develop strategies for Medicare payment for new technologies. A large part of this work is on local and national coverage decisions. Quinn focuses, in particular, in the emerging field of molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine. He also advises clients on Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) reform and its effect on payment policy. Before serving in the Medicare Part B program, Quinn was a physician executive in the Health and Life Sciences division of Accenture and was a clinician-scientist at Northwestern University School of Medicine where he led pathology research for Northwestern’s NIH-funded Alzheimer Research Center. He also held academic positions at New York University School of Medicine and UCLA Center for Health Sciences.
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Brad Rovin, MD
Professor and Director
Division of Nephrology
The Ohio State University

Brad Rovin, MD, is professor and director of the Division of Nephrology at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. He is also director of the fellowship program in Nephrology. Rovin is board certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology. Following undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at Northwestern University, he earned his medical degree from the University of Illinois, Chicago. He completed internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Barnes Hospital and a fellowship in nephrology at Washington University School of Medicine. Rovin was an instructor in medicine at Washington University before joining Ohio State University. He has more than 90 publications in both basic science and clinical research. Rovin’s basic research interests include the regulation of inflammation in the kidney during glomerular diseases. In particular, he studies the role of chemokines and other pro-inflammatory cytokines in glomerulonephritis. Clinically, he is also interested in using proteomics to interrogate the urine and develop biomarkers that forecast renal disease activity in patients with lupus nephritis.
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Wolfgang Sadee, Dr.rer.nat.
Professor of Pharmacology
The Ohio State University

Wolfgang Sadee, Dr.rer.nat. is FeltsMercer Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, chair, Department of Pharmacology, and director, Program in Pharmacogenomics, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University. At Ohio State, he holds joint appointments in Pharmacy, Psychiatry, Medical Genetics, and is a member of the Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Heart and Lung Research Institute. Sadee studied Pharmacy and received his doctorate in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the FU Berlin in 1968. After two post-doctoral positions at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and the FU Berlin, he joined the University of California in Los Angeles as assistant professor of Pharmacy and Medicine from 1981-83, and subsequently, moved to UCSF, serving as professor of Biopharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, until 2002.

Sadée’s research focuses the genetic basis of variable drug response in CNS and cardiovascular diseases, including addiction, and in cancer chemotherapy. He also pursues drug discovery in the treatment of addiction. Sadée has published more than 300 research papers and monographs. He has received the first AAPS Research Achievement Award in Biotechnology, the Paul Dawson Award in Biotechnology from AACP, and the 2001 Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Award from AAPS. He has served as founding editor of Pharmaceutical Research and the open access, on-line AAPS Journal. He teaches pharmacogenomics, pharmacology, and history of health sciences.
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Lisa Salberg
President
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association

The Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association (HCMA) is not just a cause or a hobby for Lisa Salberg, founder and CEO of HCMA. It’s her life.

Salberg was diagnosed with HCMat age 12 after a murmur was detected at a school physical. Three weeks after her wedding, at the age of 21, she suffered a stroke secondary to HCM. In 1997, she received her first ICD (implantable cardiac defibrillator), the only true protection against sudden cardiac arrest. She also takes an assortment of cardiac medications to control her HCM.
 
Professionally, Salberg has been a leader in human resource (HR) management for 17 years. Health insurance, employee benefits, business administration, event planning, employee counseling, analysis and general work flow management were the cornerstones of her career. She is a past president of the North Jersey Personnel Association and involved in many civic events and scholarship programs.

Since Salberg founded HCMA in 1996 as a national resource and support center for families affected by HCM, she has simultaneously held a full-time job while managing the organization. Through her tireless efforts to successfully increase membership, awareness and funding for HCMA, in 2005 she left her career in HR to serve the HCMA full time. The HCMA has an active membership of more 4,000 families with HCM and provides information to the world via its Web site which serves an estimated 100,000 people per year.

Salberg’s accomplishments including acting as course director for the Annual HCMA meeting which includes CME course and patient education for 11 consecutive years; co-authoring, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy for Patients, their Families, and Interested Physicians, first and second editions (2001 and 2006); authored articles for publication in medical journals, and trade publications; being interviewed and quoted in hundreds of articles and news pieces in the media including, NBC News, News12 NJ, ESPN – Outside the Lines, Quite Frankly with Steven Smith, Comcast-Real Life with Mary Amoroso, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Star Ledger, Star Tribune, Sports Illustrated, Men’s Health, EP Digest, Journal of the American College of Cardiology and countless other regional and local newspapers. She has also served on many panels, councils and represents the HCMA in several coalitions.
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Charles Shapiro, MD
Professor, Internal Medicine
The Ohio State University

Charles Shapiro, MD, is a professor of Internal Medicine and certified in Medical Oncology by the American Board of Internal Medicine. His research interests include treatment-related toxicities of cancer therapy, and phase 1 and phase 2 clinical evaluations of new breast cancer drugs.

Shapiro received his medical degree from the State University of New York in Buffalo and completed his internship and internal medicine residency at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. He continued his training at Harvard Medical School, completing his clinical fellowship in medicine, and received his postdoctoral training with a fellowship in medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Shapiro is the director of Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute Lance Armstrong Foundation’s Survivorship Center of Excellence and serves as a professor of Internal Medicine in Ohio State‘s College of Medicine. He also directs The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Breast Medical Oncology Unit and Clinical Scientific Review Committee.

Shapiro is a principal investigator on several clinical trials involving the efficacy of treatments for metastatic breast cancer. Some of his other clinical work includes examining the effects of anticancer drugs and trends among survivors of breast cancer.

Shapiro is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Task Force on Survivorship and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Task Force on Bone Health. He has been listed frequently in America’s Top Doctors for Cancer, Best Doctors in America, Who’s Who in America, and Top Doctors in America. He has contributed his expertise to 40 abstracts, eight book chapters, 23 reviews and 67 original peer-reviewed reports.
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Chip Souba, MD, ScD, MBA
Vice President and Executive Dean for Health Sciences
Dean of the College of Medicine
The Ohio State University

Wiley “Chip” Souba, MD, ScD, MBA, serves as executive dean for health sciences and dean of the College of Medicine at The Ohio State University. He holds faculty appointments as professor of Surgery and professor of Physiology and Cell Biology. Before joining Ohio State in August 2006, Souba served as chair of the Department of Surgery at Penn State University College of Medicine, surgeon-in-chief at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center and director of the Penn State Hershey Center for Leadership Development. Prior to assuming these positions at Penn State in August 1999, he served as chief of Surgical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School from 1993 to 1999. He began his career as a faculty member at the University of Florida in 1987.

Souba is an AOA graduate of the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, where he subsequently did his general surgery training. During his surgical residency, Souba completed a fellowship in surgical research at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and earned a doctorate of science in Nutritional Biochemistry at the Harvard School of Public Health. He subsequently completed a senior fellowship in Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston.

Souba’s clinical interests are in surgical oncology. He is regularly ranked one of the best doctors in America by his peers, and was recognized for his clinical expertise by Boston magazine. He has been funded by the NIH for 20 years to study the regulation of the altered amino acid metabolism that is characteristic of catabolic diseases. He has published 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is co-editor of Surgical Research and editor of ACS Surgery: Principle and Practice.
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Jeffrey Trent, PhD
President and Scientific Director
Translational Genomics Research Institute

Jeffrey Trent, PhD, is president and scientific director of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). Prior to forming TGen, Trent served for 10 years at the world’s largest biomedical research institute, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md. There, he founded and directed the laboratory division of the federal agency in charge of coordinating and finalizing the Human Genome Project. Before his tenure at the NIH, Trent held an endowed professorship at the University of Michigan and directed a division of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Before that, he held similar positions at the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson, Ariz.
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David Tweardy, MD
Professor of Medicine and Molecular and Cellular Biology
Chief, Section of Infectious Diseases
Department of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine

David Tweardy, MD, is a professor and interim chair of the Department of Medicine, chief of the Section of Infectious Diseases and interim chief of the Section of Immunology, Allergy and Rheumatology at Baylor College of Medicine. He was named chair of the Faculty Appointment and Promotion Committee at BC Min July 2007. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Following undergraduate studies at Princeton University, Tweardy earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, Boston. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in infectious diseases at Case Western Reserve University Hospitals of Cleveland, Ohio, where he was a chief resident. He also served as a research associate in infectious diseases at Case Western Reserve University, and as an associate scientist at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. Prior to joining Baylor, Tweardy was an associate professor and interim chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine at University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pa. He has more than one hundred publications, in both basic science and clinical research.
Tweardy's clinical research interests include the impact of trauma and shock on host susceptibility to hospital-acquired infections. His basic research interests include signal transduction events activated in cells and tissues by cytokines, focusing on (STAT) 3.
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Dennis Van Liew
Director, Strategic Management Group
Pfizer Global Research and Development

Dennis Van Liew has 25 years experience in helping European and U.S. organizations increase innovation, develop new business/organizational models and improve processes. He has a strong reputation in leading projects which translate visions into operational reality.

Van Liew’s career has spanned management consulting, senior staff and management positions within and for organizations involved in ethical life sciences and healthcare delivery, financing, policy and education. Through this work he has developed special expertise in leading new initiatives including new healthcare models, intellectual property strategy, strategy realignment, change management programs, organizational development, and restructuring projects.

Van Liew is currently responsible for providing strategy advice and goals setting support to Pfizer research and development leadership with a particular emphasis on drug safety, lean product development, pharmacogenomics, nanomedicine and healthcare information technology issues.

Prior to joining Pfizer in 2001, Van Liew worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers as leader in the healthcare services strategy practice in Washington, DC. He is a member of the Board of the Personalized Medicine Coalition, Washington, DC, and a Fellow in The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (UK). Van Liew earned an MS and BS in Industrial Engineering with concentrations in Health Systems Design, Decision Support and Operations Management from Iowa State University, Ames, IA. He has also taken a postgraduate course in pharmaceutical drug development at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa.
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Vance Vanier, MD, MBA
Chief Medical Officer
Navigenics

Vance Vanier, MD, MBA, received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, did his residency training at the University of California, San Francisco, and Highland Hospital in Oakland, Calif., and is on the clinical faculty in the Emergency Medicine Division of Stanford Medical Center. He serves as a member of the Personalized Medicine Coalition's Clinical Science Committee, Stanford Hospital's Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, and the American College of Preventive Medicine. During his medical career, he has had a strong commitment to international medicine—including traveling to Kosovo after the war to work with the World Health Organization in creating the nation's first ambulance system. He received an MBA from Stanford University, as well as dual bachelor's degrees with honors.
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