Ragusa Joins Affymetrix as VP of Global Operations; Steven Galson Replaces Janet Woodcock as Director of FDA s CDER; Genome Canada Adds Six Directors; Ed Chait Leaves Spectral Genomics; R. Scott Greer to Advise CombiMatrix; and Others

Robert Ragusa joined Affymetrix as senior vice president of global operations on June 27, GenomeWeb News has learned. He comes to Affy from Applied Biosystems, where he was senior vice president of global operations. He left ABI in March. According to an Affymetrix spokesman, the company created Ragusa's position to help increase its attention to supply chain and logistics. He will oversee areas such as array manufacturing, instrument manufacturing, procurement, facilities and real estate. Ragusaholds an MBA in finance and marketing from the Universityof Connecticut, a master's degree in biomedical and electrical engineering from Carnegie-MellonUniversity, and a bachelor's degree in biomedical and electrical engineering from the Universityof Connecticut.

US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester Crawford has appointed Steven Galson to be director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, the agency said in a statement this week.

Galson, a rear admiral in the commissioned corps of the US Public Health Service, had most recently served as acting center director, and formerly served as deputy director since he joined the FDA in 2001. Galson holds a BS from Stony Brook University, an MD from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Galson replaces Janet Woodcock as director of the CDER. Woodcock has been named deputy commissioner for operations and chief operating officer at the FDA, Crawford said.

As of this week, Genome Canada's board includes Natalie Dakers, the CEO of British Columbia's Centre for Drug Research and Development; Connie Eaves a  professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia; Thomas Hudson, the director of the McGill University and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre and a past assistant-director of the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research; Kelvin Ogilvie, a professor of chemistry at Acadia University in Nova Scotia; Jacques Simard, the director of the Cancer Genomics Laboratory at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Québec; and Ronald Worton, the CEO and scientific director for the Ottawa Health Research Institute.

Ed Chait has been named executive vice president and chief scientific officer at Bioanalytical Systems, the company said on Monday.

Chait previously served as CEO of Spectral Genomics, and formerly worked for DuPont in marketing and business development. Chait has also served as an advisor to the Purdue Cancer Center since 2002.

Andy Higgs has become UKsales manager of Chip-Man Technologies, the Tampere, Finland-based cell imaging company said on Monday. Previously, Higgs held positions as market development manager for PamGene International, based in the Netherlands, and as business development manager for Nonlinear Dynamics, based in Newcastle, UK. Higgs is a graduate of the Universityof Hertfordshire, UK.

R. Scott Greer has joined CombiMatrix as an advisor, the company said this week. Greer is the managing director of Numenor Ventures, a life sciences investment and advisory firm. He is the founder and chairman of AbiGenix, where he served as CEO from 1996 to 2002. Greer also served as a director at Illumina, Sirna Therapeutics, and CV Therapeutics.

He holds an MBA from HarvardUniversityand a BA in economics from WhitmanCollege.

Christine Chung has been awarded a five-year, $750,000 grant from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, according to a report in the Nashville City Paper. She is an assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology at VanderbiltUniversity. Chung will be using microarray technology to develop gene expression patterns and biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancers, according to the report.

Michael Wigler has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Miracle Foundation to fund his representational oligonucleotide microarray analysis approach to cancer research. He is a cancer researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Miracle, a nonprofit organization, announced the award last month, the third Wigler has received from the body to date. He received his PhD from ColumbiaUniversity.

Genome Canada has added six new board members, according to a statement from the Canadian funding and information resource, bringing the total number of board members to 16.

Fred Gage, Inder Verma, and Richard Gregory have been added to the scientific advisory of RheoGene, the Norristown, Penn.-based company said yesterday.

Gage currently is a professor in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute and member of the National Academy of Sciences, the company said, while Gregory, serves as senior vice president and head of research at Genzyme.

Verma serves as director of the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute and adjunct professor in the department of biology at UC San Diego. Verma is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and past president of the American Society for Gene Therapy, RheoGene said.

The W. M. Keck Foundation announced the 2005 class of Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research in Los Angeleslast week. Under the program each honoree receives an award of up to $1 million to support the scientist's activities for a period of five-years.

Among this year's recipients are Brian Kuhlman, a researcher at the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and David Sabatini, a researcher who runs the Sabatini Lab at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.

David Thompson has been elected chairman of the board of directors at Third Wave Technologies, the company said this week.

Thompson previously served as the senior vice president and president of the diagnostic division of Abbott Laboratories. He also serves as a director of St. Jude Medical, the global medical device company.

Thompson replaces Third Wave co-founder Lance Fors, who has resigned from his position and will remains as a technology adviser to the company.

Third Wave also has added James Connelly to its board of directors. Connelly is a partner in the Foley & Lardner law firm. Connelly was selected as a White House fellow by President Gerald Ford and served subsequently as special assistant to Treasury Secretary William Simon in that administration.

Connelly holds a BA from MarquetteUniversityand his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.

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