Alexandre (Sasha) Akoulitchev, MA(Oxon), PhD(UCL), FRSM
Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder, Oxford Biodynamics
Slava Akmaev, PhD, MS
Chief Technical Officer, Scipher Medicine
Slava Akmaev is the Chief Technology Officer at Scipher Medicine. He is responsible for product development in precision medicine and early discovery efforts in drug development using the Network Medicine platform. He has been recognized as a leader in the adoption of the AI/ML technology in healthcare and drug development and is a frequent speaker at some of the most prolific industry events. Slava is the inventor on a number of issued and pending patent applications and has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in computational biology, artificial intelligence and molecular biology. Additionally, he authored book chapters and numerous scientific presentations and posters.
Formerly, Slava was the SVP and Chief Analytics Officer at Berg and the head of Berg Diagnostics and Analytics divisions where he has spent 7 years developing data driven technologies for target discovery and precision medicine. Before Berg, Dr. Akmaev was the Vice President of Scientific Affairs at GNS Healthcare and the Scientific Associate Director at Genzyme Genetics where he launched multiple commercial diagnostic products. At the beginning of his career he was a bioinformatics lead at Genzyme R&D where he developed novel statistical approaches for high-throughput “omics” data. Dr. Akmaev holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Lori Anderson
Product Marketing Manager, XIFIN, Inc.
Brian Anderson, MD
Chief Digital Health Physician, MITRE Corportation
Ardy Arianpour, MBA
CEO & Co-Founder, Seqster
Lori Anderson
Precision Medicine Informatics and Real-World Data Program Lead, XIFIN
Lori Anderson is product marketing manager for precision medicine informatics at XIFIN, where she brings many years of experience in medical affairs and product portfolio management in the healthcare and life-sciences industries. Prior to joining XIFIN, Lori was the director of health economics and outcomes research at Quest Diagnostics where she defined the reimbursement strategy for numerous tests routinely used in precision medicine. As a laboratorian herself with a particular interest in hematological neoplasms and the role of platelets in cardiovascular disease, Lori has contributed to the publication of 10 book chapters, 20 peer reviewed publications and over 40 poster presentations and has presented on numerous topics in laboratory medicine and life sciences worldwide.
Kristine Ashcraft, MBA
CEO & Founder, YouScript
Kristine Ashcraft, MBA
CEO and Founder, You Script
Kristine Ashcraft, BS, MBA is a molecular biologist by training and is CEO and founder of YouScript. She has worked in the precision medicine space since 2000 and was recently named one of the 25 leading voices in precision medicine. Kristine has authored multiple publications on the clinical and economic benefits of pharmacogenomic testing including one lauded as one of the most influential publications at an AMIA meeting. She has been interviewed by numerous media outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and NBC Nightly News and has spoken at SXSW, ASHG, and numerous precision medicine Conferences. She is committed to being a catalyst in the adoption of precision medicine.
Steven D. Averbuch, MD
Precision Medicine and Oncology Rx/Dx Development, S D Averbuch Consulting, LLC
Monica Bertagnolli, MD
Chief, Division of Surgical Oncology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital at Brigham and Women’s/Dana Farber Cancer Center, Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Dawn Barry, MBA
President & Co-Founder, LunaPBC
Heather A. Brown, PhD
Senior Vice President, Market Access and Reimbursement, HeartFlow
Heather is a passionate professional that has worked within diagnostic medical imaging startups for over 15 years. Applying her software development and program management skills, she led a disciplined effort to earn a positive BCBS Evidence Street review, CMS New Technology APC payment classifications, Category III codes, and greater than 90% commercial coverage in 18 months for HeartFlow’s core technology, FFRct. Today, her leads her team to push the envelope on alternative payment models and value-based discussions with payers. Heather earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University with a focus in neuroelectrophysiology.
Gabriel A. Bien-Willner, MD, PhD, FCAP
Medical Director, MolDx, Chief Medical Officer, Palmetto GBA
Lena Chaihorsky
Vice President Payer Innovation, Alva10
An experienced healthcare executive with a proven track record of innovative value based reimbursement strategies, Lena Chaihorsky has spent her career studying reimbursement and the managed care industry from the perspective of diagnostics. With a background in biology and mathematics from Tufts, she has held leadership positions in sales, national contracting, and reimbursement for both start up and global diagnostics companies prior to co-Founding Alva10. Her thought leadership in payment innovation recently led to appointment on World Economic Forum working groups on Precision Medicine.
Coco Brown
Founder, CEO, COO, Board Director and Advisor, The Athena Alliance
Jennifer B. Christian, PharmD, MPH, PhD, FISPE, Fellow of NAM
Vice President, Clinical Evidence & Epidemiology, IQVIA
Trish Brown
Director; AMR Payor Partner and Field Market Access Lead, Illumina
Dana Deighton
Project Manager at Inspire and Patient Advocate
Dana is an accomplished and enthusiastic marketing professional with decades of experience in corporate marketing and publishing, membership, and partner/project management. After 25 years at National Geographic, she is now in a new career in the health and wellness arena at Inspire, the leading social network for health, who’s mission is to accelerate medical progress through a world of connected patients.
Outside of work, she is also focused on healthcare advocacy and policy. In addition to serving as an Executive Board Member of the Esophageal Cancer Action Network (ECAN), she is a Patient Representative on the Locally Advanced Esophageal Cancer Guideline Panel for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and serves on the GastroEsophageal Project Patient Advisory Committee, a project led by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (a nonprofit academic research institution whose mission is to dramatically accelerate the understanding and treatment of disease).
Dana lives in Alexandria, VA, with her husband and three teenagers, and enjoys travel and walking and running outdoors.
Alessandra Cesano, MD, PhD
Chief Medical Officer, ESSA
Tony Gruber, MBA
Chief Commercial Officer, Prescient Medicine
Tony Grover brings over 20 years of experience and expertise in business development, strategic partnerships, licensing, reimbursement and new technology platform development as an executive in the diagnostic and medical device industries. Tony has raised over $100M in cumulated capital, negotiated a variety of deals including licenses, strategic investment, joint ventures, and lab service agreements.
Most recently, Tony served as Vice President of Business Development for Banyan Biomarkers, where he was accountable for commercial activities in the US and global markets. Under his leadership, the company received the first FDA approval for a blood test to diagnose mild TBI, or concussion. Prior to Banyan Biomarkers, he was the Director of Marketing and Reimbursement at PhotoThera, a privately held medical device company developed a non-invasive laser for the treatment of ischemic stroke. Tony was also a management consultant for PRTM, now PwC, where he worked with a variety of Fortune 500 companies to increase operational efficiency.
Tony is the current Chairman of the BIOCOM Medical Device and Diagnostics Committee and on the Advisory Board of the Global Brain Health Coalition. He previously served as Chairman on the Board of Directors for the American Heart Association, San Diego. Tony is a Ronald E. McNair Scholar from Michigan State University with a B.S. in Biochemistry and has a M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
Julie Collens, PhD
CEO Vivid Genomics
Patricia Goede, PhD
Vice President, Clinical Informatics, XIFIN
Patricia Goede is VP Clinical Informatics at XIFIN, Inc., where she brings 22 years’ experience developing biomedical imaging informatics solutions and technology to facilitate multi-modality and multispecialty image-based exchange, collaboration, and management in distributed environments. Goede founded VisualShare and served as CEO until its acquisition by XIFIN in 2015. Previously, Goede was at the University of Utah where she pioneered a number of image, visualization and collaboration tools. She is the founder of the Electronic Medical Education Resource Group (EMERG), and as its director, established the Utah Center of Excellence for Electronic Medical Education. Goede holds an MS in Computational Visualization and a PhD. in Biomedical Imaging Informatics.
Chris Cournoyer, MA, MIT Executive Education Program
Strategic Advisor, Qiagen
Mark D. Hiatt, MD, MBA, MS
Vice President, Medical Affairs, Guardant Health
Mark Hiatt, currently Vice President for a precision oncology company, has served as the Chief Medical Executive for a multi-state Blues plan and a National Medical Benefits Manager, and Department Leader and Board Member for a regional health system. Dr. Hiatt completed a fellowship in cardiovascular imaging at Stanford University, residency in radiology and master’s in Health Evaluation Sciences at the University of Virginia, and MD and MBA with academic distinction at Wake Forest University. He is the Chair of the Greater Salt Lake Chapter of the American Red Cross.
Sean Downing, PhD, MBA
Director Customer Engagement, Ultivue
Patrick Hurban
Senior Director and Global Head, Translational Genomics, Q2 Solutions
Dr. Hurban is Senior Director and Global Head of Translational Genomics at Q2 Solutions. In this role, he is responsible for the identification and implementation of new genomic capabilities, encompassing bioinformatics and wet-laboratory methods, as well as the development and validation of genomic assays to support research and clinical programs. These include broad-based screening assays, such as exome and RNA sequencing, to highly focused expression, genotyping and sequencing assay panels that target a smaller number of genes. Dr. Hurban has more than 25 years of experience in molecular genetics, including more than 18 years in positions of increasing responsibility in high-profile genomics-focused organizations. His research interests have focused on the genetic control of gene expression and have spanned diverse fields such as toxicology, developmental, and cancer biology.
Following a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he earned his Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City before serving as a postdoctoral research fellow of the American Cancer Society in the Department of Developmental Biology at Stanford University.