Chinese University of Hong Kong: Dennis Lo
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on Friday unanimously approved the appointment of Dennis Lo as vice chancellor and president for a period of five years, effective Jan. 8, 2025. Lo is a pioneer in liquid biopsy and noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT). He joined CUHK in 1997, the same year he reported the presence of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma, laying the groundwork for NIPT. He is currently director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Science and a professor of medicine and chemical pathology at CUHK. He is also the associate dean (research) of the CUHK faculty of medicine.
In 2023, Lo helped form Insighta, a joint venture with genomic testing firm Prenetics that is developing multi-cancer screening tests. In 2012, he founded Cirina to develop noninvasive tests for early cancer screening (Cirina later became a part of Grail). Lo later cofounded Hong Kong-based startup Take2 Health, which licensed intellectual property back from Grail to develop a noninvasive early detection test for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
Lo received a B.A. degree from the University of Cambridge and holds Ph.D. M.D. degrees from the University of Oxford.
Freenome: Mike Nolan
Freenome CEO Mike Nolan has resigned from his position for personal reasons. While it searches for a successor, the firm's board of directors has established an interim office of the CEO, led by Freenome cofounder Riley Ennis, with assistance from board member Douglas VanOort. Nolan will serve as a consultant to the company and its board.
Burning Rock Biotech: Leo Li, Xiaozhi Hu
Leo Li has resigned as CFO of Burning Rock Biotech and from its board, effective Sept. 27. The Guangzhou, China-based developer of next-generation sequencing-based cancer tests said Li's resignation was for personal reasons and did not result from any disagreement with the company or the board. Xiaozhi Hu, senior director of Burning Rock's board, will be in charge of its financial operations, financial reporting, and related matters of the firm, the company said.
Accellix: Greg Hamilton
Greg Hamilton has been appointed as CEO of flow cytometry company Accellix. Nir Nimrodi, the firm's former CEO, will remain chairman of the board. Hamilton was previously CEO and board member at io9, CEO and executive board member at Epigenomics, CEO and director at AltheaDx, chief operating officer and CFO at Enigma Diagnostics, VP of operations and finance at Third Wave Technologies, and VP of operations at Hologic. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in finance from Purdue University.
CS Genetics: Bill Colston
Bill Colston has been appointed as CEO of CS Genetics. He is the founder of QuantaLife, which he led as CEO until its acquisition by Bio-Rad Laboratories. He also founded synthetic biology firm Sestina Bio and diagnostics company HealthTell. Previously, he directed the US biologic and chemical defense R&D program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Colston holds a B.S. in molecular biology from the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of California, Davis.
Broken String Biosciences: Laurence Reid, Brad Crutchfield
Gene editing company Broken String Biosciences has appointed Laurence Reid and Brad Crutchfield to its board of directors.
Reid joins the board as chairman. He was previously CEO at Decibel Therapeutics and Warp Drive Bio. He has also held executive positions at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Ensemble Discovery, and Millenium Pharmaceuticals. He is also a board member at other biotech companies and nonprofit organizations.
Crutchfield was most recently chief commercial officer at 10x Genomics. He was also senior VP of life sciences at Qiagen; VP and general manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Illumina; and president of the life science group at Bio-Rad Laboratories. He also sits on the boards of Pixelgen Technologies, Partillion Bioscience, and S2 Genomics.
Zetta Genomics: Bram Goorden
Bram Goorden has been appointed as a nonexecutive director of Zetta Genomics, based in Cambridge, UK. He is the CEO of Ixico, a London-based precision medicine company. Previously, he was at Eagle Genomics, Sophia Genetics, and Foundation Medicine.
FIND: Marcel Tanner, Hatem Amer
Global diagnostics nonprofit FIND has appointed Marcel Tanner and Hatem Amer to its board of directors.
Tanner is an epidemiologist and public health specialist who was previously director of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and is currently the president of the Swiss Academy of Sciences.
Amer, a pharmacist and lawyer, is currently the associate minister of health and population for international relations in the Arab Republic of Egypt.
MD Anderson Cancer Center: Linghua Wang
Linghua Wang has been appointed as associate member of the James P. Allison Institute and as coleader of single-cell spatial omics at the Institute for Data Science in Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is an associate professor of genomic medicine at MD Anderson.
Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation: Justin Chen Li
Helio Genomics CEO Justin Chen Li has been invited to the leadership board of the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation at the University of California, Los Angeles. The board serves as an advisory group for the institute, which aims to invent and foster practical solutions to restore or enhance individuals' health.
For additional recent items on executive appointments, promotions, and departures in the omics and molecular diagnostics space, please see the People in the News page on our website.