Michael Tognotti to head CombiMatrix CustomArray Sales, Hugh Rienoff and Thanos Triant Join GeneEd Board, Joshua Baker to Lead InGenium Research, Gerald Fink Links up With Dyadic International s SAB, and Others

Michael Tognotti joins CombiMatrix of Mukilteo, Wash., as director of sales in North America for the company's CustomArray line of microarrays, the company said this week. CombiMatrix is the life sciences unit of Acacia Research. Tognotti's responsibilities include building and managing sales, technical support, and customer services for the product. Previously, Tognotti was in sales and marketing management positions at San Diego-based Illumina. He has previously worked for Qiagen, Fisher Scientific, and Genetech.

Hugh Rienhoff and Thanos Triant were named to the board of directors of GeneEd, the San Francisco-based online education provider said this week. Rienhoff was a general partner with the venture capital firm Vanguard Ventures and previously founded DNA Sciences. Rienhoff holds a doctor of medicine degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a BA in biology and English literature from Williams College . Triant is the founder and managing partner of the Woodside Group, an early-stage venture fund. Triant holds an MS in computer science and a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from Columbia University.

Joshua Baker will join inGenium Research, a Cary, NC-based contract research organization as president and chief executive officer, the company said last week. Baker most recently served as president and CEO of PPGx, a pharmacogenomics research and development company. Previously, he was executive vice president of global operations for PPD Development. Baker holds a PhD and a master's in statistics from Texas A&M University and a bachelor's degree in mathematical science from the Pennsylvania State University.

Gerald Fink joined the scientific advisory board of Dyadic International of Jupiter, Fla., the company announced last week. Fink is a professor of genetics at the Whitehead Institute/Massachusetts Institute of Technology .

Mark Kay, the director of the Human Gene Therapy program at Stanford University's School of Medicine and a professor in pediatrics and genetics, will join the scientific advisory board of Benitec of Queensland, Australia, after the company last week announced the acquisition of Sunnyvale, Calif-based Avocel, which Kay co-founded.

Additionally, Sara Cunningham, also an Avocel co-founder and the company's vice president of intellectual property and development, joins Benitec as chief operating officer. Previously, she had worked as a manager at BD Biosciences and Clontech.