New York Genome Center: Thomas Lehner
Thomas Lehner has died at the age of 64. He was the scientific director of neuropsychiatric disease genomics at the New York Genome Center. Prior to joining NYGC in 2020, he held various positions at the National Institute of Mental Health, which he joined in 2004, including director of the office of genomics research coordination. He also held academic and research positions at Columbia University, Rockefeller University, Gencentrix, and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Born in Austria, he held a PhD in human biology from the University of Vienna.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies: Clive Brown, Rosemary Sinclair Dokos, Lakmal Jayasinghe
Clive Brown has stepped down as chief officer of technology, innovation, and products of Oxford Nanopore Technologies "to pursue new projects." He is succeeded by Lakmal Jayasinghe, who has been appointed as CSO, and Rosemary Sinclair Dokos, who has been appointed as chief product and marketing officer. Brown, who had already stepped down from the board of directors in February, will remain an advisor to the company during a transition period.
Lakmal joined Oxford Nanopore in 2007 and has been responsible for all biological R&D projects at Oxford Nanopore. He will continue to lead efforts to integrate genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics into the firm's nanopore platform.
Sinclair Dokos joined the company in 2014 and has overseen the development and launch of several platforms, including the PromethIon 2 and the GridIon Q-line. She will continue to lead the development of products for multiomic, clinical, biopharma, and industrial applications.
Pacific Biosciences: Jeff Eidel
Jeff Eidel will no longer be chief commercial officer of Pacific Biosciences, effective Nov. 15, because of an internal restructuring of the company's commercial organization. His responsibilities will be assumed by CEO Christian Henry, who will not receive increased compensation as a result.
BillionToOne: Judy Wong, Alex Bisignano, Susan Lin
BillionToOne has appointed three new executives: Judy Wong, who previously held leadership positions at Vivani Medical, HeartFlow, and Abaxis, joins the next-generation molecular diagnostics company as VP and controller; Alex Bisignano, who was the founder of Phosphorus and Recombine, will be VP of business development; and Susan Lin, who has expertise in building scalable, compliant, and secure technology infrastructures for precision medicine companies, joins the firm as VP of information systems.
NeoGenomics: Felicia Williams
NeoGenomics has appointed Felicia Williams to its board of directors effective Nov. 1, 2024. Williams is a former interim CFO of Macy's and a fellow of the program CEO Action for Racial Equality. She will serve as a member of the board's audit and finance and nominating and corporate governance committees. Besides Macy's, Williams has held financial positions at multinational corporations including Coca-Cola and Bristol Myers-Squibb. She is also a member of the board of directors of Paycom and Anywhere Real Estate.
TileDB: Eric Goldstein, Julie Bryce, Tom Hannon, Paolo Narvaez, George Llado, Jeff Miller
Bioinformatics company TileDB has appointed Eric Goldstein as chief revenue officer, Julie Bryce as chief marketing officer, Tom Hannon as head of finance, and Paolo Narvaez as VP of product. Goldstein previously held sales positions at Cockroach Labs, Mesosphere (now D2iQ), and Hortonworks (now Cloudera). Bryce was most recently chief strategy officer at MIT AI startup Pienso and held previous positions at Red Hat and Oracle. Hannon used to be corporate controller at Cockroach Labs, with earlier roles at BMC Software and OpenLink Financial. Narvaez comes to TileDB from Intel, where he was a senior principal engineer and senior director and led the health and life sciences engineering team.
Further, TileDB has added two new members to its board of directors. George Llado joins as an independent director. He is the former senior VP and chief information officer of Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Jeff Miller joins the board as an observer. He is an operating partner at Two Bear Capital.
Sphere Fluidics: Erroll Rueckert, Graeme Daniels, Jay Manikandan, Jay Gerlach
Droplet-based microfluidics firm Sphere Fluidics has appointed Erroll Rueckert as North America commercial director, Graeme Daniels as VP of commercial for EMEA, Jay Manikandan as VP of commercial for APAC, and Jay Gerlach as VP of global marketing. Rueckert previously held various roles at NanoString Technologies and Lightcast Discovery; Daniels was promoted from VP of sales and marketing and held prior posts at IsoPlexis, Horizon Discovery, and Revvity (formerly PerkinElmer); Manikandan used to manage sales in APAC for 10x Genomics, NanoString, and Bruker Spatial Biology; and Gerlach held product management and marketing positions at PATH, NanoString, and Purigen.
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.