Craig Venter Receives North American BioBusiness Leadership Award; Susan Strong Named VP of Marketing at Dharmacon; Richard Murphy Joins Accelrys as VP of Worldwide Sales; And More

Craig Venter has been awarded this year's North American BioBusiness Leadership Award by the University of Southern California's Marshall Business School, USC said this week.

The award is the first in a series of regional and global BioBusiness Leadership Awards that "recognize leading individuals, organizations or corporations that exemplify the spirit of innovation, enterprise and entrepreneurship in areas of biobusiness," USC said. 

Yash Gupta, USC Marshall dean, will present Venter with the award at a lunch ceremony at the DavidsonConferenceCenter on the USC campus on December 7. 

Fisher Scientific subsidiary Dharmacon has hired Susan Strong as vice president of marketing.

Strong most recently worked as an independent consultant, primarily for the US branch of Swiss bioinformatics firm GeneData. Prior to that, she was vice president for sales and marketing at Genomica. She has also served as vice president of marketing for Dionex, and held various marketing and field positions for 14 years at Hewlett-Packard. Strong holds an MS in analytical chemistry from the Universityof North Carolina.

Agostino Fede has been appointed senior vice president of global central labs of PPD and will take the position next March, the company said last week.

PPD recently changed its name from Medical Research Laboratories International.

Fede most recently served as chief executive officer and founder of Vizyo, a drug development informatics venture in Geneva, and previously served as vice president of operations and sales director for Covance Central Laboratories in Europe.

He has also held management positions with CR Bard and the diagnostics division of Abbott Laboratories.

Fede holds an MS and PhD in molecular biology and biophysics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and also earned an MBA from Ashridge Business School in the UK.

Richard Murphy has joined Accelrys as its senior vice president of worldwide sales and services, the company said yesterday.

Murphy most recently served as senior vice president, general manager, and chief sales officer of MSC Software.

Prior to MSC, he held senior technical leadership positions with PDA Engineering and Ford Aerospace. He received his BS in mechanical engineering technology from CaliforniaStatePolytechnicUniversity in Pomona.

Randy Engler has joined WaveSense as vice president of sales and marketing, WaveSense said last week.

Engler comes to WaveSense from Thermo Electron, where he was business manager for laboratory automation.

Susan Clark joined Dynex Technologies as vice president of sales and marketing, Dynex's parent company, Magellan Biosciences, said this week. 

Clarkpreviously served as sales manager for Thermo Electron's trace chemical analysis group, part of its scientific instrument division.

Clark holds a BS in biology from the Universityof Akron in Ohio.

Sigma-Aldrich has named Doug Rau as its vice president of human resources, Sigma-Aldrich said this week.

Rau most recently served as vice president of human resources at Kellwood, an apparel company. He also served as Kellwood's director of training and development for five years. 

Rau holds an MBA degree from Saint LouisUniversity and a BA in business administration from the Universityof Missouri, Columbia.

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