NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Molecular diagnostic company Trovagene has appointed Charlie Rodi to vice president and chief technology officer. His previous positions include director of the Monsanto Genome Sequencing Center and executive vice president of genomics at Sequenom. He also has held positions at G.D. Searle and ICx BioSystems.
Emerald BioSystems has appointed George Abe to take over its CEO position and it has promoted Peter Nollert to be chief technologist. Abe recently was CEO of Cambridge Research and Instrumentation and he was a senior VP of tissue imaging at Caliper Life Sciences. Nollert, an expert in structural and membrane protein science, formerly held post-doctorate fellowships at the University of Basel, Stanford University, and the University of California, San Francisco.
Tecan's board of directors has named David Martyr to be company CEO, taking over the company's helm from Thomas Bachmann, who held the position since 2005 and will leave the company immediately. While Martyr fulfills his current contractual obligations, Gerard Vaillant will serve as acting CEO. Tecan said Martyr would join the company no later than Oct. 8, 2012.
Martyr previously was president of Leica Microsystems, after serving over a decade with the company, and since 2009 he served concurrently as group executive and VP of Danaher, which owns Leica Microsystems Group.
Gentronix has expanded its sales teams in the US and Europe, naming Dorothy Zelent to be director of North American operations and Simon Johns as European sales director. Zelent formerly was a senior scientist in cardiovascular drug discovery at GlaxoSmithKline, and Johns has more than two decades of experience supporting international commercial efforts in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and chemical sectors.
Arizona State University has named Hao Yan to be the Milton Glick Distinguished Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Yan's research at ASU's Biodesign Institute has focused on structural DNA nanotechnology, or DNA origami – building closed structures out of DNA. Yan formerly was an assistant professor of computer science at Duke University, and he has received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and a National Science Foundation CAREER award.
HTG Molecular has added three new faces to its executive team. It has named Shaun McMeans to be VP of finance, administration, and chief technology officer; Timothy Holtzer to be VP of clinical diagnostic development; and Sam Rua to be VP of regulatory affairs and quality systems.
Holtzer formerly worked on diagnostics teams at DiagnoCure and Centocor, and he led cross-functional teams at Abbott Laboratories and the Whitehead Institute. Rua previously was involved in companion diagnostics approvals and clearances at Ventana Medical Systems, and he was VP of global regulatory and clinical affairs at Beckman Coulter and executive director at Third Wave Technologies. McMeans formerly was CEO of Securaplane Technologies, CFO of the Long Companies, and CFO and COO of LXU Healthcare.
The Broad Institute has appointed Steven Hyman to be director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, a post he will take over from the center's founding director, Edward Scolnick. Hyman formerly was director of the National Institute of Mental Health and provost of Harvard University, and he currently is a distinguished service professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard.
The Stanley Center aims to use modern genomics and genetics in neurobiology and neuropsychiatric research to develop new therapeutics.
Exact Sciences said this week that it has promoted Maneesh Arora to tackle the role of COO while continuing in his current CFO post. Arora was named Exact's senior VP and CFO in 2009, and before that he held the same positions at Third Wave Technologies.
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