Mass. Gov. Patrick Names 10 Members to New Life Sciences Advisory Board
Ten professionals with backgrounds in the life sciences, healthcare, and finance have been named by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to the state’s new scientific advisory board.
The board met May 7 with Patrick “to discuss ways that Massachusetts can create new economic opportunity and spur new discoveries in the life sciences sector,” according to a press release issued by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a state-created quasi-public agency. The board was created to provide scientific and technical advice and oversight, as well as ensure scientific credibility and transparency for MLSC funding decisions.
Named to the advisory board:
- James Barry, vice president for corporate research and advanced technology development, Boston Scientific.
- James Collins, professor of biomedical engineering, Boston University.
- George Daley, associate professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology and of pediatrics, Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
- Patricia Donahoe, director of the pediatric surgical research laboratories and chief emerita of pediatric surgical services, Massachusetts General Hospital; Marshall K. Bartlett professor of surgery, Harvard Medical School.
- Lila Gierasch, professor of biophysical chemistry, department of biochemistry, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
- Richard Goldsby, John Woodruff Simpson lecturer and professor of biology, Amherst College.
- David Lederman, founder and former board chairman, Abiomed.
- Jeffrey Leiden, managing director, Clarus Ventures.
- David Scadden, professor of medicine, Harvard University; co-chair, department of stem cell and regenerative biology, Harvard University; co-director, Harvard Stem Cell Institute; director, MGH Center for Regenerative Medicine.
- Alan Smith, chief scientific officer, Genzyme.
- Lydia Villa-Komaroff, CEO,Cytonome.
- Phillip Zamore, professor of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology, UMass Medical School.
In March, Patrick announced the appointment of the advisory board’s chairman, Harvey Lodish. He is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and professor of biology and bioengineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
RMD, Boston Scientific Executives Elected to California Healthcare Institute Board
Daniel O'Day and Michael Onuscheck have been elected to the board of directors of the California Healthcare Institute.
O’Day has been president and chief executive officer at Roche Molecular Diagnostics in Pleasanton, Calif., since April 2006. O'Day has been with Roche for more than 20 years, following positions of increasing responsibility in sales, marketing, and human resources. He spent 11 years managing international assignments that included life cycle leadership at Roche Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland; strategic planning and involvement in the Chugai merger in Tokyo, Japan; and, prior to joining the molecular diagnostics unit, served as general manager of Roche Pharmaceuticals in Denmark.
O'Day holds an undergraduate degree in biology from Georgetown University and an MBA from Columbia University.
Onuscheck is president of the neuromodulation division of Boston Scientific in Valencia, Calif. Before joining Boston Scientific, Onuscheck held positions at Medtronic Sofamor Danek in spinal reconstructive surgery and stereotactic image guided surgery, and later at Advanced Bionics, where he led the sales, services, technical service and customer service organizations for the auditory division.
Onuscheck received his bachelor's degree in business administration and psychology from Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pa.
CHI is a non-profit public policy research organization, representing more than 250 leading biotechnology, medical device, diagnostics, and pharmaceutical companies, and public and private academic biomedical research organizations.
Colorado BioScience Association Announces Nine New Board Members
Nine new board members have been elected to the Colorado BioScience Association’s 40-member board of directors:
- Jim Chrisman, senior vice president, Forest City.
- John Dunning, president and CEO of Clarimedix.
- Leslie Leinwand, director of the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology and professor in the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Department at the University of Colorado.
- Terry Opgenorth, chief operating officer, MicroRx and NeoTREX, the enterprise arms of Colorado State University's Infectious Disease and Cancer Superclusters, based at the Colorado State University Research Foundation.
- John Poate, vice president for research and technology transfer, Colorado School of Mines.
- Rae Reynolds, president, Kaleidoscope Group.
- Jim Skrine, executive director of quality, Amgen.
- Rulon Stacey, president and CEO, Poudre Valley Health System.
- Dan Stinchcomb, CEO and co-founder, Inviragen.
Seven existing board members were re-appointed to the CBSA board: Sean Moriarty, president of QLT-USA in Fort Collins, Colo.; Jack Wheeler, founder and vice president of business development at MicroPhage in Longmont, Colo.; Rick Jory, president and CEO of Sandhill Scientific in Highlands Ranch, Colo.; John Eckstein, a director with the Denver law firm Fairfield and Woods; Maggie Holben, owner of Absolutely Public Relations in Lakewood, Colo.; Tom Roach, audit partner with Ernst and Young overseeing its Colorado health sciences practice; and Lynn Taussig, special advisor to the provost for life sciences at the University of Denver.
CBSA is a more-than-400 member not-for-profit corporation providing services and support for Colorado's biosciences industry.
NC Biotech Center Taps American Scientist Editor as Communications VP
Chris Brodie has joined the North Carolina Biotechnology Center as vice president of corporate communications. The center is a state-funded, private, non-profit corporation charged with supporting the state’s life sciences industry in order to provide North Carolina “long-term economic and societal benefits.”
Brodie previously was an associate editor of American Scientist, a bimonthly magazine published by Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, which, like the biotech center, is headquartered in Research Triangle Park.
Brodie is the co-founder of Science Communicators of North Carolina, a more than 200-member professional organization of scientists, journalists, public information officers, teachers and museum curators.
Brodie was born in Michigan and grew up in Georgia’s Cobb County. After earning undergraduate degrees in biology and English from the University of Georgia, he taught high school science for three years in rural South Georgia.
As a predoctoral fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Brodie earned a PhD in molecular, cellular, developmental biology and genetics from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. He then came to the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University as a postdoctoral research associate. At Duke, Brodie received a National Research Service Award from the US National Institutes of Health.
Brodie is also a Fulbright Scholar for 2008-2009. During a four-month residence in Oslo, he will teach science communications at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Notre Dame Researchers Join Cancer Genomics Center at UAlbany-SUNY
Prostate cancer specialist Martin Tenniswood and breast cancer researcher JoEllen Welsh have joined the Generating Employment Through New York Science, or Gen*NY*Sis, Center for Excellence in Cancer Genomics, based at the University at Albany-State University of New York’s School of Public Health.
The two were also named Empire Innovations Professors of Biomedical Sciences within UA-SUNY’s department of biomedical sciences. The Empire Innovation program was created to boost economic development and research competitiveness across New York state by enabling SUNY's university centers and doctoral campuses to hire investigators in areas in which the University is already demonstrating national and international strength.
UA-SUNY said in a statement the Empire Innovation program was instrumental in recruiting both professors from Notre Dame.
Tenniswood, who specializes in apoptosis in prostate cancer, previously served as the Coleman Foundation chair of biological sciences at Notre Dame. Welsh, who specializes in steroid hormones, nuclear receptors and breast cancer, was previously a professor of biological sciences. Both have studied improving current hormone therapies for prostate, breast and endometrial cancers, specifically by cloning and characterizing the expression of apoptosis-related genes involved in prostate and mammary gland regression.
Tenniswood and Welsh will work from labs at the Cancer Research Center within the Gen*NY*Sis center, named for a $500 million life sciences economic development program championed by state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick).
Artist Tapped to Paint Dome of NC Research Campus’ Core Lab Building
Brenda Mauney Councill, a Blowing Rock, NC, artist, has been chosen by the developer of the $1.5 billion North Carolina Research Campus to paint the domed ceiling inside the Core Laboratory Building, the Salisbury (NC) Post reported.
Councill has spent the past six weeks working on a design for the dome with the campus’ developer, David Murdock, after he backed away from hiring two painters from India for the project. The design will feature a "radiant” sun in the center, surrounded by fruits and vegetables painted in a representational style — as well as an eagle in flight, which she told the newspaper was a "metaphor for Mr. Murdock himself.”
The design was conceived by architect Arnold Savrann, who works at Murdock’s real estate company Castle & Cooke.
At 2,500 square feet, with a diameter of 36 feet, the dome will be the largest ever painted by Councill. Scaffolding for the project reaching 100 feet to the dome ceiling will start being erected this week, and the painting project will take about two months.