Tony A. Rook leads the Microbiology Resource Center at The Sherwin-Williams Company in Cleveland, OH, USA, where he has built a world-class Microbiology Center of Excellence to focus on global preservation strategies, continuous improvement of industrial hygiene practices, and ... development of microbiological methods to support coating technology applications. Tony received his undergraduate training in Biology at The University of Dayton (Dayton, OH USA). Tony influences industry-wide microbiology excellence through his leadership in multiple inter-industry committees. He Co-Founded and Chairs the Consumer Specialty Products Association's (CSPA) Microbiology-Preservative Subcommittee (MPS) which is committed to establishing microbiological standards for consumer and industrial products.Tony serves as an Executive Board Member of CSPA Cleaning Product's Division. Mr. Rook served as the Chair of the Industrial Associates Committee for the Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE) at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, USA from 2012-2014.He is an active member of the International Biodeterioration Research Group (IBRG)and the American Society for Microbiology. Prior to Sherwin-Williams, Mr. Rook helped to found LabRoots.com and served as the Chief Scientist for ScientistSolutions.com. Mr. Rook served as a Research Scientist at Steris Corporation, developing medical device reprocessing systems and liquid chemical high level disinfectants and sterilants.He founded and lead microbiology laboratory initiatives at Loctite Corporation, and served as an industrial microbiology consultant to the consumer and personal care products industries. Mr. Rook's recent publications have focused on the importance of effective preservation strategies and methods within consumer products. Tony enjoys providing innovation solutions to difficult technical problems through a multi-disciplinary scientific approach within a cross-functional team environment.

John Quackenbush is Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. John's PhD was in Theoretical Physics but a fellowship to work ... on the Human Genome Project led him through the Salk Institute, Stanford University, and The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), before joining Harvard in 2005. John's research uses massive data to probe how many small effects combine to influence our health and risk of disease. His published work has more than 87,000 citations and among his honors is recognition in 2013 as a White House Open Science Champion of Change. In 2012 he founded Genospace, a precision medicine software company that was sold to Hospital Corporation of America in 2017.

Judd W. Moul is James H. Semans, MD Professor of Surgery, Division of Urologic Surgery, and Director of the Duke Prostate Center, Duke Cancer Institute at Duke University Medical Center. Prior to joining Duke, he was Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of ... the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland and an attending Urologic Oncologist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in Washington, DC. In addition, he was Director of the Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR); a Congress-mandated research program of the Department of Defense based at USUHS and WRAMC. In 2004, he completed a 26-year U.S. Army career, retiring as a full Colonel in the Medical Corps, and became Chief of the Division of Urologic Surgery at Duke. Serving as Chief from 2004 to 2011, he brought innovation and growth to the program. Most notably, he started the Duke Prostate Center, expanded the urology residency training program through a novel collaboration with the Department of Defense and was able to maintain Duke Urology as a top 10 program in the nation throughout his tenure. Dr Moul completed his Urologic Oncology Fellowship at Duke University and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Pennsylvania State University. He earned his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. Dr Moul currently serves on the editorial boards of Prostate Cancer, Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases, BJU International, American Journal of Mens Health, Brazilian Journal of Urology, World Journal of Urology, and Oncology REALTIME. He has published over 500 medical and scientific manuscripts and book chapters and has lectured at national and international meetings. He has appeared on ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS, and other media as a prostate cancer authority. Honors and awards received have included the American Medical Associations Young Physicians Section Community Service Award for his national involvement in prostate cancer patient support groups, the Sir Henry Welcome Research Medal and Prize from the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, the prestigious Gold Cystoscope Award by the American Urological Association, the Baron Dominique Jean Larrey Military Surgeon Award for Excellence, the Order of Military Medical Merit from the Surgeon General at the US Army, and the Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year award.

Professor Howard Morris is Professor of Medical Sciences at the University of South Australia and a Chief Medical Scientist in Chemical Pathology at SA Pathology, Adelaide, South Australia. He is currently Vice-President of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry ... and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) and Chair of the IFCC-International Osteoporosis Foundation Working Group on Standardization of Bone Marker Assays. He has over 30 years experience in Clinical Biochemistry largely managing the Endocrinology laboratory of a large public pathology service. Between 2003 and 2009 he was the Director of the Hanson Institute in Adelaide, the major medical research institute in South Australia. His research investigates the pathophysiology of osteoporosis and the effects of hormones including vitamin D and dietary calcium. He was the Louis Avioli Memorial Lecturer at the 2009 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. He is also Chair of the South Australian Department of Health Working Party on Osteoporosis and Fracture Prevention.

Ross J. Molinaro, PhD, MT(ASCP), DABCC, FACB is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University. He received his PhD in Clinical Chemistry and Molecular Medicine from Cleveland State University and completed the ComACC training ... program at Emory as the first recipient of the AACC Past-Presidents' Scholarship. He currently serves as the Medical Director of the Core Laboratory at Emory University Hospital Midtown and co-Director of the Emory Clinical Translational Research Laboratory. Ross also teaches various aspects of laboratory medicine to medical students, pathology residents and fellows, clinical chemistry fellows, and medical technology students. Ross joined the AACC in 2005 and is a member of the Proteomics and Clinical Translational Science Divisions. Ross is currently a committee member of the Society for Young Clinical Laboratorians (SYCL). He is also a member of the Professional Practice Review Course Curriculum Organizing Committee and the Clinical Chemistry Trainee Council Executive Committee as the Exam Questions Vault Coordinator. In addition, Ross serves as an American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) Board Liaison to the Clinical Chemistry Examination Committee, and a member of the Board of Governors as the ASCP/AACC Member Representative. With over 40 publications and book chapters, his interests reside in the practice and standardization of mass spectrometry in the clinical laboratory and expanding the knowledge base of clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine for medical students and those practicing in different healthcare disciplines.

Dr. Mauro is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He is also a co-founder and lead scientist of Promosome, a biotechnology company focused on bioproduction enablement and DNA vaccines. In addition, Dr ... Mauro is a Senior Fellow in Experimental Neurobiology at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, California. Prior to moving to The Scripps Research Institute, Dr. Mauro received his Ph.D. at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and continued his studies as a postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University in New York City. Dr. Mauro studies both fundamental and applied aspects of translational control mechanisms. His basic research is focused on understanding how eukaryotic mRNAs recruit ribosomes, how ribosomes subsequently locate initiation codons, and how ribosomes regulate the translation of specific subsets of mRNAs. Dr. Mauro's applied studies build on his basic research. These applied studies have led to the identification of Translational Enhancer Elements (TEEs) and the generation of synthetic translational enhancers.

Dr. Paul J. Mathews received his bachelors degree from the University of Oregon where he studied invertebrate behavioral plasticity in the lab of Dr. Nathan Tublitz. He received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin under the mentorship of Dr. Nace ... Golding. Dr. Mathews work focused on understanding how the biophysical properties of specific voltage-gated ion channels in an auditory brainstem nuclei contribute to their capacity to make sub-millisecond computations necessary for low frequency sound localization. For the past several years Dr. Mathews has been working at UCLA under the mentorship of Dr. Tom Otis where he is currently working to uncover the cerebellar circuit mechanisms that underlie motor learning and memory. To do this Dr. Mathews is utilizing a multifaceted approach that includes both in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology, optogenetics, advanced optics, histology, and behavioral manipulations to make links between cerebellar circuit activity and motor output in rodent models. He is currently on the job market looking for a tenured track assistant professor position.

Tatjana is an immunologist with more than two decades of experience working at biotech and pharma companies from start-ups to large global corporations ( Pfizer,Inc. being the latest), contributing significantly to team efforts and successes of more than thirty early and clinical ... stage programs and several commercial products and biosimilars.

Mark Marzinke, PhD, DABCC earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and subsequently completed a clinical chemistry fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University in 2012. During his clinical fellowship, Dr. Marzinke focused on the development and ... validation of qualitative and quantitative mass spectrometric assays for the clinical monitoring and quantitation of pain management drugs and anti-neoplastic agents, respectively. Further, he performed large scale proteomics studies aimed at the temporal identification of biomarkers expressed during ovarian cancer progression. Dr. Marzinke is currently an Instructor in the Departments of Pathology and Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM). He serves as the Director of Preanalytics and General Chemistry in the Core Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he focuses on workflow analysis and test utilization. Additionally, he is the Associate Director of the Clinical Pharmacology Analytical Lab (CPAL) at the JHUSOM, where he focuses on the development and validation of quantitative mass spectrometric methods in rare matrices to support large clinical trials. His research interests include the development, validation and implementation of assays focused on personalized medicine, including therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacogenetic testing. Dr. Marzinke is board certified by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry.

Dr. Alan Maisel attended University of Michigan Medical School and did his cardiology training at the University of California at San Diego. He is currently Professor of Medicine at the University and director of the coronary care unit and the heart failure program at the ... affiliated Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He is considered one of the worlds experts on cardiac biomarkers, and is given credit for ushering in the use of BNP levels in clinical practice around the world. He has over 300 articles in print and a large clinical and basic science lab. Dr. Maisel is also a fixture at the medical school, where he has won countless teaching awards from medical students as well as interns and residents. Dr Maisel s yearly San Diego Biomarker meeting is considered the most prestigious of its kind. Dr. Maisel is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of American College of Cardiology. He has published two medical novel and helps to raise five children, He gave up on sleep five years ago.

President & CEO of StressMarq Biosciences Inc., a research reagent company with primary product lines in neurodegenerative diseases and cellular stress based in Victoria (BC), Canada. Successful Senior Scientific Business Executive with demonstrated expertise growing markets ... revenues, product pipelines and expanding technical organizations into new business opportunities. Educational and business management experience in global markets, with quantified success in moving technical businesses into new international arenas. Author of numerous peer-reviewed articles, and holder of several patents.

Jimmy Lin, MD, PhD, MHS, is a 2012 TED Fellow and Founder & President of Rare Genomics Institute, the world's first platform to enable any community to leverage cutting-edge biotechnology to advance understanding of any rare disease. Partnering with 18 of the top medical ... institutions, such as Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Stanford, RGI helps custom design personalized research projects for diseases so rare that no organization exists to help. Dr. Lin is also a medical school faculty member at the Washington University in St. Louis and led the computational analysis of the first ever exome sequenching studies for any human disease at Johns Hopkins. He has numerous publications in Science, Nature, Cell, Nature Genetics, and Nature Biotechnology, and has been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and the Huffington Post.

Ahmad Salehi, M.D., Ph.D. is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford Medical School and the Director of the Translational Laboratory at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California. He obtained his MD in Tehran, Iran ... and then moved to the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research, in Amsterdam to get his PhD. While he was there, he was selected as the best junior scientist in the field of Alzheimers disease in the Netherlands. After finishing his graduate studies and 3 years of postdoc in Amsterdam, he moved to Stanford Medical School. First as a postdoc, and then as a Senior Research Associate, he worked on mechanisms of failed axonal transport in mouse models of Down syndrome. For almost a decade, he was the Director of Stanford Brain Bank. Since 2009, Dr. Salehi has moved to the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. In December 2010, he received the World Technology Award in the field of Biotechnology for his innovative work on the use of mouse models of Down syndrome. During his carrier, Ahmad has been involved in publication of a large number of papers from which several have appeared on the cover of Science, Cell: Stem Cell, Science Translational Medicine, Neuroscience and Bio-behavior Reviews, and Biological Psychiatry (twice).

Dr. Straseski is a medical director of endocrinology at ARUP Laboratories and an assistant professor of pathology at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She received her PhD in pathology and laboratory medicine and a Master's degree in bacteriology from the University of ... Wisconsin-Madison, where she also served as a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Pathology. Dr. Straseski completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland. She has previously been awarded the Past-President Scholarship by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, as well as a Distinguished Abstract Award from the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry. Dr. Straseski is board certified in clinical chemistry by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry.

Bradley Ford received his M.D. and Ph.D. (Physiology and Biophysics) degrees from SUNY Stony Brook, followed by a Clinical Pathology residency and postdoctoral training in basic and clinical microbiology at Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests include ... bacterial pathogenesis and application of biophysical and computational methods to improve clinical diagnostics.

Fred Russell Kramer is Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the New Jersey Medical School, and has been a Principal Investigator at the Public Health Research Institute for the past 25 years. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1964 and received his ... doctorate from the Rockefeller University in 1969. He was on the faculty of the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons for 17 years and has been a Research Professor and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Microbiology at New York University School of Medicine for the past 24 years.

Dr. Wright is the Chief Medical Officer at Roche Diagnostics Corporation in Indianapolis, Indiana. Prior to joining Roche, Dr. Wright served as Senior Vice President of Health Improvement Strategies for Miraca Life Sciences. He was the Vice President for Product Strategy and ... Business Development for Resolution Health, a privately held analytics and intervention company serving the managed care market place. Until 2005, Dr. Wright was chairman and CEO of Star Pharmaceuticals, a generic pharmaceutical company he founded in 2002, serving the needs of the urological community. Previously, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Science Officer of Caremark . Dr. Wright also served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for AdvancePCS. Dr. Wright graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree from Pennsylvania State University. He received his medical doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his residency in internal medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia. While at Temple he served as Chief Medical Resident from 1985 to 1986 and completed his Masters of Public Health degree at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Dr. Wright is a member of several journal editorial boards. He is a member of the American Medical Association and American College of Physicians. He is also certified as a diplomat to the American Board of Internal Medicine and the National Board of Medical Examiners.

Dr. Willerth currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Victoria where she is dually appointed in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Division of Medical Sciences. Her research group investigates how to engineer neural tissue ... by combining pluripotent stem cells, controlled drug delivery and biomaterial scaffolds . She has given invited talks at the Till and McCulloch Annual Meeting and at the 1st Annual British Columbia Stem Cell and Regeneration Medicine Initiative Meeting as well as presented at the 9th Annual World Biomaterials Congress in Chengdu, China. She belongs to both the Brain Research Centre (BRC) and the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) - B.C. based organizations committed to treating brain diseases and disorders and finding long term treatments for the repair of spinal cord injuries respectively. Before accepting her faculty position, Dr. Willerth completed an NIH post doctoral fellowship at the University of California-Berkeley and graduate studies at Washington University.

Dr. Sihe Wang is Section Head and Medical Director of Clinical Biochemistry and Director of Clinical Biochemistry Fellowship Training Program, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio. He also chairs the clinical chemistry integration effort for the Cleveland Clinic Health System which ... includes 1 Florida hospital, 8 community hospitals and 18 family health centers in Northeast Ohio. Additionally, he is Clinical Chemistry Professor, Cleveland State University. Prior to his current position, Dr. Wang was Assistant Professor at Northwestern University; Director, Clinical Chemistry Laboratory and Referred Testing Laboratory, Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Wang is a diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry (DABCC) and a fellow of the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (FACB). Dr. Wang is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Society for Mass Spectrometry and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC). He served as chair of AACC Northeast Ohio Section in 2008 and 2009 and the president of North American Chinese Clinical Chemistry Association (NACCCA) 2008-2009. Currently he serves as the historian for NACCCA, the treasurer for the Pediatric and Maternal Fetal Division of AACC, the delegate for AACC Northeast Ohio section, commissioner for The Commission on Accreditation in Clinical Chemistry (ComACC), and a member of AACC's Strategies Online Editorial Advisory Board. The AACC presented him with the 2005, 2008, and 2010 Clinical Chemist Recognition Award. He is also the recipient of the 2006 Lemuel J. Bowie Young Investigator Award for the Chicago Section of the AACC. Dr. Wang has authored over 140 journal articles, book chapters, and abstracts. He also serves on several editorial boards of peer reviewed journals.

Dr. Katerina Venderova obtained her master's and doctorate degrees in pharmacy, and her PhD in Toxicology from Charles University in the Czech Republic. She then received a fellowship from the Parkinson Society Canada and pursued her postdoctoral training at Toronto Western ... Research Institute (2 years), and subsequently at University of Ottawa in Canada (5 years), where she studied genetics of Parkinson's disease, mechanisms of neuronal death and cell signaling in the basal ganglia. Dr. Venderova joined Pacific in 2011.

Dr. Taylors background is in biophysics, bioinformatics, computational biology and structural biology with emphasis on human genetics and translational medicine. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and completed a postdoctoral ... fellowship at Pfizer in Ann Arbor. She had worked in the pharmaceutical industry at EMD-Serono, transitioning into clinical and basic research by moving to Harvard School of Public Health and then to clinical research at RWJ/Rutgers. She also served several years as the Program Director of the Graduate Program in Bioinformatics at Brandeis University, where she still occasionally teaches a course in Computational Systems Biology. Her main areas of research are in the development of mathematical and computational methods to better understand biological variation and the genetic contribution to disease, coupling clinical information with high-dimensional biomedical data from next-gen sequencing, microarray, PCR, and proteomics experiments. Some of her immediate research interests are in development of methods to better classify effects of genetic variation within interacting systems through effects in gene function and contributions to disease, developing mathematical genotype representations of variation in populations, and using machine-learning techniques to build classifiers in translational medicine research. Her scientific contributions were acknowledged with the rest of the Divisions research team at the 2010 ASRM meeting when the REI division received the ASRM Prize Paper Award, where her contribution was in building databases, systems and validated methods for high-throughput genotype analyses .

Agnieszka is currently a Staff Scientist and Laboratory Manager at TessArae, LLC in Sterling, VA, USA. She obtained her PhD at the University of Queensland in Australia in a field of biochemistry, and subsequently worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Queen's University of Belfast ... University of Queensland and Institute for Molecular Biosciences. Since 2005 until 2008 she held a continuing appointment as a lecturer in a School of Dentistry at the University of Queensland and established her own laboratory in area of functional genomics and metabonomics. She has over 10 years of experience in molecular biology, genetics, genomics, biochemistry, microbiology and metabonomics. In addition she has experience as a science writer. Recently Agnieszka served on the Council of the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and is still active in the society. Currently she is working on novel diagnostic assays for infectious diseases using microarray re-sequencing technology.

The discovery of proteinaceous disease biomarkers and their clinical validation is critically important for the enablement of molecular diagnostics and ultimately, precision medicine. In spite of the importance of biomarkers, research done in the last two decades has yielded ... limited success in enhancing the repertoire of protein biomarkers of disease. This apparent dichotomy is in large part due to the fact that the process from discovery to validation is complex and involves a multidisciplinary collaboration across clinical, biochemical and biophysical disciplines and that that many initiatives sought to identify unique markers for a given disease with perfect correlation. Recent advances in better biomarker discovery strategies, clinical sampling and sample storage, better sample preparation methods that consider the inherent instabilities associated with clinical specimens, better discovery methods and analytical instrumentation suited for assay validation and clinical assays together promise to generate better panel tests for disease biomarkers of clinical significance. Hide Biography Dr. Latterich has nearly 20 years of academic and commercial and leadership experience and features an accomplished research career focused on the proteomics-based discovery of novel biomarkers in oncology, respiratory disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Martin is currently CSO at BioScale, a Lexington, MA, based biotechnology corporation commercializing a novel acoustic biomarker quantification platform. Most recently Martin served as a Professor at the Proteogenomics Research Institute for Systems Medicine in San Diego, where his laboratory used proteomics and genomics to discover novel biomarkers of cancer and degenerative disease though a systems biology approach that includes proteomics. He is also the CSO, co-founder and a board member for the non-profit Nicholas Conor Institute for Pediatric Cancer Research. Martin's work at the institute included designing new technologies to enable the better treatment of children with cancer, using personalized medicine technology to match their unique genetic make-up and tumor physiology to available treatment options. He previously served on the faculty of the University of Montreal, McGill University and the Salk Institute. His grant-funded work has been recognized by the 2003 Tier I Canada Research Chair, the 1998 Pew Scholar Award and the 1997 Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Award. Dr. Latterich also held senior management positions at several biotechnology companies, including Diversa and Illumina, where he headed the proteomics initiatives. He has made significant contributions to the field of cell biology, clinical biomarker discovery, proteomics and genomics. Among his recent discoveries are biomarkers for cancer, respiratory disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Dr Latterich has edited one book on RNAi, is author on over 34 publications in leading scientific journals and is listed on numerous patent applications. Martin is Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Proteome Science. He has served on several national and international study sections. He was a postdoctoral fellow in molecular and cell biology in the laboratory of Dr. Randy Schekman at the HHMI and University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Latterich earned his Ph.D. in cell biology and a B.Sc. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Durham University, U.K.

Dr. Charles Cantor is a founder, and Chief Scientific Officer at SEQUENOM, Inc., which is a genetics discovery company with tools, information and strategies for determining the medical impact of genes and genetic variations. He is also the founder of SelectX Pharmaceuticals ... a drug discovery company, Retrotope, an anti-aging company, and DiThera, a biotherapeutic company. Dr. Cantor is professor emeritus of Biomedical Engineering and of Pharmacology and was the director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology at Boston University. He is currently adjunct professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego, adjunct professor of Molecular Biology at the Scripps Institute for Research, and distinguished adjunct professor of Physiology and Biophysics at UC Irvine. Prior to this, Dr. Cantor held positions in Chemistry and then in Genetics and Development at Columbia University and in Molecular Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. Cantor was educated in chemistry at Columbia College (AB) and at the University of California Berkeley (PhD). Dr. Cantor has been granted more than 60 US patents and, with Paul Schimmel, wrote a three-volume textbook on biophysical chemistry. He also co-authored the first textbook on Genomics titled 'The Science and Technology of the Human Genome Project'. In addition, he sits on the advisory boards of numerous national and international biotechnology firms, has published more than 450 peer-reviewed articles, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Cynthia Bowman has been a broad based general pathologist for over 30 years. She graduated with a BA in Chemistry from St. Olaf College, received her MD from Vanderbilt University Medical School, and trained for 6 years at the University of California, San Francisco as a ... surgery intern and then anatomic and clinical pathology resident. She worked as an emergency room physician during training and has always had a clinical perspective in her practices. She has worked in California, Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Australia as an anatomic and clinical pathologist and laboratory medical director in small, mid-sized, tertiary and academic medical centers. She is currently Medical Director at Enzo Clinical Laboratories, a commercial reference laboratory and bioscience company in the NY metropolitan area, and in that capacity collaborates with the development and integration of molecular services into clinical testing. She has been active in national laboratory organizations, especially the College of American Pathologists, where she was chair of the Point of Care Testing Resource Committee. In that capacity she guided the introduction and was the senior editor of a web-based POCT toolkit as a resource for laboratory director leadership in POCT. She has also written and edited multiple educational pieces for the laboratory community as part of the CAP Excel Survey program and in 2012 she was awarded a Life Time Achievement Award by the CAP. She has spoken at AACC and CAP meetings and currently serves on several CLSI document development committees. She is currently chair of an International Federation of Clinical Chemistry POCT task force work group addressing the use of glucose meters in critical care patients. Her professional commitment has always been to integrate and translate pathology and laboratory medicine services into effective clinical care. She has dedicated her efforts in POCT as part of that vision to collaborate with all stakeholders and involve laboratory services as part of the continuum of care. She enjoys evaluating technology and integrating it into laboratory services.

Dr. Borchers received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Konstanz, Germany. After his post-doctoral training and employment as a staff scientist at NIEHS/NIH/RTP, NC and he was the director of the Duke - UNC Proteomics Facility and held a faculty position at UNC ... Medical School in Chapel Hill, NC (2001-2006). Since then Dr. Borchers is Associate Professor at University of Victoria (UVic), Canada and the Director of the UVic - Genome Proteomics Centre. His research is centred around the improvement, development and application of proteomics technologies with major focus on techniques for quantitative targeted proteomics for clinical diagnostics.

Dr. Peter Blume-Jensen has extensive expertise in basic and translational cancer research, oncogenic signaling, and targeted oncology therapeutics drug discovery prior to joining Metamark as CSO in 2010.&nbsp; From 2001 to 2008 Peter was department head at first Serono, US and ... later at Merck Research Laboratories, Merck &amp; Co, Inc. where he established novel, integrated oncology drug discovery departments and programs linking therapeutics to patient responder populations. During his tenure he advanced a number of pre-clinical drug programs into the clinic, and provided translational support for clinical programs. Since 2008 he was Exec. Dir. and Vice President for External Scientific Affairs at Daiichi Sankyo Inc., served as the global 'Therapeutic Area Advisor' for Oncology, and was co-responsible for formulating a global oncology R&amp;D strategy. He co-led the scientific M&amp;A and due diligence resulting in the acquisition of Plexxikon (US$935M).&nbsp; In 2010 he joined Metamark as CSO and 2nd employee.&nbsp; Here he built and let R&amp;D, a world-class KOL Advisory Board, and a novel, automated proteomics imaging platform for CLIA-certified cancer tests.&nbsp; He designed and let 4 clinical studies culminating with the successful blinded, clinical validation of ProMark, a prognostic prostate cancer biopsy test for intact tissue.&nbsp; During the initial commercial launch in Q1-2, 2014 he led Medical Affairs and training of all commercial staff.&nbsp; Since June 2014, Peter has joined Xtuit Pharmaceuticals, a targeted therapeutics start-up, as CSO, and first employee.&nbsp; Peter continues to serve as Chief Scientific Advisor and on the SAB for Metamark and also has joined the SAB of Veritas Gene, Inc, a NGS company. <br /> <br />Dr. Blume-Jensen has authored highly-cited original articles, reviews, and book chapters in Personalized Molecular Oncology. His review 'Oncogenic Kinase Signaling' in Nature is a citation classic in 'Clinical Medicine', and his work on genetically engineered cancer and male infertility mouse models has been widely portrayed on CNN and other news channels. His approaches for efficacy-predictive biomarkers have appeared on Nature Biotechnology's 'Hot patents' watch-list and in numerous Editorial highlights for Personalized Oncology. Dr. Blume-Jensen obtained his M.D. from Copenhagen, Denmark, his Ph.D. from Dr. Carl-Henrik Heldin's laboratory at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Uppsala, Sweden, and conducted his Post-Doctoral studies in Dr. Tony Hunter's laboratory at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA. He has consulted extensively for Biotech and Pharma on targeted therapeutics and Precision Medicine

Dr. Blonder leads the Clinical Proteomics Group at the CRTP/FNL. FNL is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center operated by Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., for the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In 1978, Dr. Blonder received his M.D. at the Rijeka University ... School of Medicine, Croatia. In 2000, through Associated Western Universities, Dr. Blonder was awarded a post-doc fellowship in proteomics at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (Advisor: Dr. Richard D. Smith). At the PNNL, his research was focused on studying cell surface proteins using mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics. In 2002, Dr. Blonder joined FNL (formerly NCI-Frederick) where he continues to develop and apply MS-based proteomics to cancer research. Since 2006, he has led the Clinical Proteomics Group, extending his research on development of shotgun proteomics for in-depth profiling of membrane proteins found at the cell surface of cancer cells. In parallel, he worked on methodology for cancer biomarker and drug target discovery using precision proteomics for targeted profiling of clinical tissue and blood specimens. His group was the first to optimize the immunodepletion of abundant proteins from clinical tissue homogenates. Currently, Dr. Blonder is leading the effort towards molecular mapping of the KRAS cell surface as a part the RAS program. This program is spearheaded by the FNL as a national mission to attack RAS-driven cancers. Dr. Blonder brings unique combination of his expertise in medicine, clinical proteomics, and pathway analysis, focusing his research on the development of innovative approaches for molecular profiling of cancer cell lines, body fluids and tissue specimens. He is an editor of BMC Cancer and a lecturer at the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences at NIH. Since 2002, Dr. Blonder has authored over 50 scientific publications in areas of biological mass spectrometry, clinical proteomics and cancer research.

Dr. Bayrak-Toydemir is the medical director of the Molecular Genetics and Genomics Laboratories at ARUP and an associate professor of pathology at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Bayrak-Toydemir received her MD from the Ankara University School of Medicine in ... Ankara, Turkey, where she also received her PhD in human genetics. Subsequently, she completed her fellowship in clinical molecular genetics at the University of Utah. She is board certified in medical genetics. Dr. Bayrak-Toydemir has focused her research efforts on understanding the molecular genetic characteristics of the Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT) disease, an autosomal dominant vascular dysplasia. Her research aims to identify additional gene(s) that can cause HHT disease, to determine the roles of regulatory region mutations of known HHT genes, and to describe the genotype-phenotype correlation. In addition to HHT, her research aims to identify gene(s) that cause various inherited vascular malformations. She is also interested in application of next generation sequencing to molecular diagnostics.

Szczepan is a Comparative Medicine Veterinarian & Scientist turned "technology geek" who currently heads the Global Emerging Technologies (GET) within Comparative Medicine at Novartis. In this position, Szczepan leads integrated enterprise strategy for digital and non-digital ... technologies. Specifically, the non-digital GET initiative focuses on stakeholder engagement to understand current status and application, identifies adaptation hurdles and develops qualification pathways for Microphysiological Systems (MPS) technologies. In parallel, the goal of the digital GET initiative is coordination and prioritization of the development and integrated use of patient-relevant and translatable digital biomarkers for efficacy and safety studies and Extended Reality (XR) technologies for telemedicine. Szczepan has played instrumental roles in founding and leading the Global Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) MPS and Digital Biomarkers Groups. Szczepan is a graduate of the University of Delaware and the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. He completed his residency in Laboratory Animal Medicine and received a Master of Science degree in Comparative Medicine from the University of Washington School of Medicine. Szczepan began his career at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as a Research Associate where he was recruited to develop the first canine embryonic stem cell lines and to collaborate on the development of novel canine transplantation protocols to eliminate graft-versus-host disease. Prior to joining Novartis, Szczepan held multiple start-up and faculty positions and served on multiple boards. Currently, he is serving as a as a vice-chair of the IQ Microphysiological Systems (MPS) Affiliate and leads the IQ MPS Affiliate Regulatory Outreach Group. He is a Medical & Scientific Advisory Board member at the Canines-N-Kids Foundation and serves as an AAALAC ad hoc specialist and a Scientific Advisory Committee on Alternative Toxicological Methods (SACATM) ad hoc member. Szczepan is the founding member of the North American 3Rs Collaborative (NA3RsC) MPS Initiative and a Boston Innovation Advisory Council member.

Dr. Antonio T. Baines is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) and an adjunct professor in the Department of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill. He earned a ... bachelors degree in biology from Norfolk State University and a doctorate in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Arizona. Afterwards, Dr. Baines accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at UNC in pharmacology and radiation oncology under Drs. Channing Der and Adrienne Cox. His research focused on understanding the role of the Ras oncogene as a molecular target in pancreatic cancer oncogenesis. In August 2006, Dr. Baines accepted a tenure-track faculty position at NCCU where he currently teaches and conducts research as a cancer biologist. Also, he mentors high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in his laboratory. Pancreatic cancer is the 4th most common cause of cancer deaths in the United States with a high mortality rate and very limited treatment options. The overall focus of Dr. Baines research program is to identify and validate novel molecular targets in pancreatic cancer which can be targeted by potential cancer therapeutics. Additionally, his lab aims to understand the role of these molecular targets in the development and progression of normal cells transforming into cancer cells of the pancreas. Currently, Dr Baines studies the functional significance of the oncogenic Pim kinase family in pancreatic cancer growth and development. He hypothesizes that inhibition of these enzymes will be an effective approach for antagonizing the aberrant growth of pancreatic carcinoma. In addition to working with colleagues in academia, he collaborates with various pharmaceutical companies that are developing Pim inhibitors. Results from his studies will allow for critical validation of these kinases as novel therapeutic targets for pancreatic cancer treatment. Dr. Baines research has been funded by NIH and other grant sources. He has presented his research at various national scientific meetings such as the Society of Toxicology and the American Association for Cancer Research. In addition, Dr. Baines has given invited research seminars at universities such as Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (A&T) State University, Indiana University, North Carolina State University, University of Missouri-Kansas City and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Dr. Ottavio Arancio received his Ph.D and M.D. from the University of Pisa (Italy). From 1981 to 1986 he took residency training in Neurology at the University of Verona (Italy). Dr. Arancio has held Faculty appointments at Columbia University, NYU School of Medicine and at ... SUNY HSCB. In 2004 he became Faculty member of the Dept of Pathology & Cell biology and The Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University. His honors include the "G. Moruzzi Fellowship" (Georgetown University), the "Anna Villa Rusconi Foundation Prize" (Italy), the "INSERM Poste vert Fellowship" (France), the AHAF centennial Award (2007), the Zenith Award (2007), the Margaret Cahn Research Award (2008), and the Edward N. and Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation Award. Dr Arancio is a cellular neurobiologist who has contributed to the characterization of the mechanisms of learning in both normal conditions and during neurodegenerative diseases. During the last ten years he has pioneered the field of mechanisms of synaptic dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Arancio's laboratory has focused primarily on events triggered by amyloid protein. These studies, which have suggested new links between synaptic dysfunction and amyloid protein, are of a general relevance to the field of Alzheimer's disease both for understanding the etiopathogenesis of the disease and for developing therapies aiming to improve the cognitive symptoms.

Dr. Aguilar obtained his PhD degree in Immunochemistry from the School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Aguilar pursued his post-doctoral training at the National institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD in the lab of the well-known cell ... biologist Dr. Juan Bonifacino. In 2005, after a period as Associate Research Scientist at The Johns Hopkins University (in Dr. Beverly Wendland lab), Dr. Aguilar joined the Faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University. There, his group studies the mechanisms linking endocytosis and signaling in health and disease. In order to pursue its research goals, the Aguilar lab routinely use biophysical, biochemical and genetic approaches.

George Fritsma is an associate professor in Laboratory Medicine of the Department of Pathology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Prof. Fritsma manages www.fritsmafactor.com, "The Fritsma Factor, Your Interactive Hemostasis Resource," a clinical coagulation ... educational resource and blog. The Fritsma Factor is sponsored by Precision BioLogic, Inc, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. Prof. Fritsma is the continuing education editor for the Clinical Laboratory Science Journal and a member of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry publications committee. He is co-editor of Hematology Clinical Principles and Applications, 4th edition, 2012, and he is and co-author of Quick Guide to Renal Disease Testing, 2011; Quick Guide to Venipuncture, 2010; Quick Guide to Coagulation 2nd Edition, 2009; and Quick Guide to Hematology Testing, 2007, all available from the ASCLS bookstore. Prof. Fritsma is a 40-year member of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science and a member of the International Society for Thrombosis and Haemostasis. He holds a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, a Masters in Medical Technology from Wayne State University, Detroit, and advanced course work from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Director, Clinical Chemistry Laboratory University Hospital Director, General Laboratory Cancer Treatment Research Center Director, Proteomics Laboratory UTHSC at San Antonio Interim Director, Molecular Laboratory UTHSC at San Antonio Associate Director, Mycology Laboratory UTHSC ... at San Antonio I graduated from the Collegium Medicum at Jagiellonski University in Poland, and subsequently completed residency program in anatomic, clinical pathology and clinical chemistry. I have been practicing pathology in the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas as a staff pathologist and medical director of clinical chemistry and molecular laboratory. I have been serving the Instrumental Resource Committee of the College of American Pathologist (CAP) since 2008. Since 2009 I have served for the Pharmacogenomics Committee, Educational subcommittee working on Pharmacogenomics Educational Course. I was actively involved in the CLSI on a project "Method Validation by using patient's sample". The main scientific interest is in biomarkers for aggressive prostate cancer as well as biomarkers for monitoring the trauma patients with hemorrhagic shock.

Fred Russell Kramer currently works at the Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, at the Public Health Research Institute of the New Jersey Medical School at Rutgers University. His laboratory's current current project is the design of extremely ... sensitive, multiplex, real-time PCR assays for the detection and quantitation of somatic mutations that are relevant to cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy.

Dr. Johnson-Davis is a medical director of the Clinical Toxicology laboratory, Antifungal Testing and Immunosuppressants Testing at ARUP. Dr. Johnson-Davis received her PhD in pharmacology at the University of Utah and is board certified in clinical chemistry by the American ... Board of Clinical Chemistry. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in clinical chemistry at the University of Utah, Department of Pathology, and was a postdoctoral research associate at the Center of Human Toxicology at the University of Utah. Dr. Johnson-Davis is a member of various professional societies, including the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.

Bruce W. Hollis, Ph.D. received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the Ohio State University and subsequently his Ph.D. from the University of Guelph in 1979. Dr. Hollis then completed an Endocrine Fellowship at The Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1982. Dr. Hollis ... was then Appointed Assistant Professor of Nutrition at Case Western and remained there until 1986 when he moved to The Medical University of South Carolina where to he is Professor of Pediatrics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He is also Director of Pediatric Nutritional Sciences. Dr. Hollis has studied vitamin D metabolism and nutrition for the past 35 years and has been an NIH grant recipient for the past 30 years. His current work focuses on the vitamin D requirements during pregnancy and lactation. Dr. Hollis has in excess of 200 peer reviewed articles in this area of investigation.

Michael F. Holick, Ph.D., M.D. is Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Biophysics; Director of the General Clinical Research Unit; and Director of the Bone Health Care Clinic and the Director of the Vitamin D, Skin and Bone Research Laboratory at Boston University Medical ... Center. Dr. Holick has made numerous contributions to the field of the biochemistry, physiology, metabolism, and photobiology of vitamin D for human nutrition. Dr. Holick has established global recommendations advising sunlight exposure as an integral source of vitamin D. He has helped increase awareness in the pediatric and medical communities regarding vitamin D deficiency pandemic, and its role in causing not only metabolic bone disease, and osteoporosis in adults, but increasing risk of children and adults developing common deadly cancers, schizophrenia, infectious diseases including TB and influenza, autoimmune diseases including type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease. He also observed the pregnant women who were vitamin D deficient were at increased risk for preeclampsia and requiring a C-section. He has written more than 300 pier reviewed articles, edited or wrote 12 books including The Vitamin D Solution and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Linus Pauling Prize in Human Nutrition.

Dr. Ulrich Hengst studied biochemistry at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and conducted his graduate research at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, in the group of Prof. Denis Monard. In 2003 he received his PhD from the ... University of Basel. For his postdoctoral training, Dr. Hengst joined the laboratory of Samie R. Jaffrey, MD, PhD at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, NY. In Dr. Jaffreys group, he investigated the role of axonally localized mRNAs for axonal development leading to the identification of the first examples of specific mRNAs that are translated in axons in response to extracellular signaling molecules and that mediate growth cone collapse and axon elongation, respectively. In 2009, Dr. Hengst joined the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimers Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, NY, as an Assistant Professor. He has successfully established new research projects addressing the role of local protein synthesis in Alzheimers disease and neurodevelopment.

Since June 2011, Dr. Harris has served as the Senior Vice President of Translational Medicine at Biogen Idec. Dr. Harris has served as the Director of the Advanced Technology Program at SAIC Frederick since 2007 and Chief Technology Officer for SAIC Frederick since 2008. Prior to ... holding these positions, he served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Novasite Pharmaceuticals Inc. from January 2005 to September 2006. Prior to that, he served as Chief Executive Officer for Structural GenomiX, Inc., a drug discovery and development company focused on innovative cancer therapeutics from 2003 to 2004 and as its President and Chief Executive Officer from 1999 to 2003. Dr. Harris started his career in biotechnology in 1981 as a group leader in Molecular Biology at Celltech Group and from 1989 to 1993 was Director of Biotechnology at Glaxo Group Research in the U.K. From 1993 until 1999, Dr. Harris was Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Research and Development at Sequana Therapeutics Inc. in San Diego, which became Axys Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in 1998 and was subsequently acquired by Celera Genomics. During the past five years, Dr. Harris has served on the board of directors of Dendreon Corporationration and he currently serves on the boards of directors of Origen Therapeutics, Inc. and Gyrasol Technologies and is Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of Bionomics Inc. in Australia.

Dr. Anthony A. Grace is a Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University School of Medicine with Dr. Benjamin S. Bunney and had postdoctoral ... training with Dr. Rodolfo Llinas in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Grace has been involved in translational research related to the dopamine system for over 30 years. His early work pioneered the mode of action of antipsychotic drugs, and the identification and characterization of dopamine-containing neurons, and was the first to provide a means to quantify their activity state and pattern in a way that is the standard in the literature. His current work involves novel treatments for schizophrenia and its prevention, the role of dopamine in anhedonia and affective disorders, and the mode of action of ketamine and novel antidepressant drugs. Dr. Grace has received several awards for his research, including the Paul Janssen Schizophrenia Research Award and the Lilly Basic Scientist Award from the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Efron Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, as well as a NIMH MERIT award, a Distinguished Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression, the Judith Silver Memorial Investigator Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and appointment as a Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a past member of the governing council of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and is on the editorial board for numerous leading journals in the field.

Pierre-Antoine Gourraud is a former student of the Ecole Normale Suprieure de Lyon in France. After receiving an M.P.H. from University Paris XIII in 2002, he got his Ph.D. in Immunogenetic Epidemiology and Public Health from Toulouse University in 2005. He relocated to the ... United States to do his postdoctoral research in Neuroimmunogenetics of multiple sclerosis at UCSF in 2009 and joined the UCSF faculty in 2011. Dr Gourraud has established numerous research collaborations with investigators from all over the world: He develops bioinformatics resources at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (Immunogenetics markers: HLA, KIR, Microsatellites). At UCSF, he performs new generation of MS genetic association studies using massive sequencing technologies in various genetic ancestry backgrounds and continues developing software dedicated to translational digital medicine. His recent efforts have focused on the MS Bioscreen, a tablet-based navigation-system that integrates multiple dimensions of patient information including clinical evolution, therapeutic treatments, brain imaging, genomics and biomarker data.

Dr. Geaghan is Chief, Pathology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, and Co-Director of Clinical Laboratories at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. She also directs the Bass Pediatric Cancer Center Laboratory at the Lucile Packard Hospital; is Director of the Point of ... Care Testing Program for the women and children's hospital and is Director of Stanford Clinical Laboratory at Mary L. Johnson Pediatric Ambulatory Care Center. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and in Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, teaching medical students, residents, fellows and post-graduate continuing medical education programs. Dr. Geaghan received her undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College and MD at Boston University School of Medicine. She received her training, including two residencies in Anatomic and Surgical Pathology and in Laboratory Medicine, at the University of California, San Francisco, where she also served as Chief Resident and was the first Hematopathology Fellow. Dr. Geaghan holds four board certifications: in Anatomic Pathology; Hematopathology; Clinical Pathology and Pediatric Pathology. Dr. Geaghan is Chair-elect of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry Division of Pediatric Maternal Fetal Division, the largest organization of laboratory medicine professionals (2012-2014). Dr. Geaghan was recently named to the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry's Task Force on Pediatric Laboratory Medicine, and the College of American Pathologists Point of Care Testing Committee. Dr. Geaghan serves on numerous Executive Boards, including the Medical Executive Board at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford and also serves on Advisory Boards as an avid advocate for children's health, in various national Pediatric Clinical and Laboratory Medicine Associations. She has recently been named in Top Doctors of the Year by San Jose Magazine, and in the American Registry of Outstanding Professionals.