John Sowatsky, David Bentley, Mark Whitman, Michael Terry, and Ecogenomics

People in the News

NanoString Technologies has named John Sowatsky as vice president of product development, the Seattle-based firm said last week.

Sowatsky most recently served as vice president of system business unit at Affymetrix, where he held various informatics-related management positions since he joined the firm in 1995, including manager and director of software development and vice president of informatics and instrumentation.

Prior to his time at Affy, Sowatsky held positions at Abbott Laboratories and at LifeScan, a Johnson & Johnson company.

David Bentley will join Solexa as chief scientist on Sept. 5, the company said last week. He comes to Solexa from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, where he was a founding member of the management team, holding the position of head of human genetics. At Solexa, Bentley will spearhead the company's DNA sequencing applications development and projects. He has been on Solexa's scientific advisory board since 1998 and is a co-inventor of aspects of the company's technology. Bentley holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford and an MA in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.

Mark Whitman has joined the scientific advisory board of CombiMatrix Molecular Diagnostics, the company said last week. He will also be a company consultant in the area of melanoma diagnosis and management. Whitman is the administrative director of surgical services and the director of the melanoma center at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, New Jersey. He holds a medical degree from Pennsylvania State University School of Medicine and a BA in chemistry from Haverford College.

Michael Terry, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Sequenom, has left the company on July 25, the company said in an SEC filing. He will remain available to "provide reasonable consulting services," Sequenom said.

New Product Watch

Ecogenomics last week launched DNA micorarrays for evaluating the adverse effects of chemical substances including the EG Microarray Killifish 750 for killifish experiments, the EG Microarray Mouse 1200, and the EG Microarray 12chamber which Ecogenomics claims can provide gene expression analysis of 12 different samples per chip.

The Japanese firm said the arrays retail for ¥25,000 ($227), ¥27,500 and ¥30,000, respectively.