NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Marc Lalande has been appointed to the new position of executive director of Genomics and Personalized Medicine Programs at the University of Connecticut where he will help lead the development of research and training programs for the Institute of Systems Genomics, as well as direct collaborations with The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, and industry and government partnerships for the planned CT Institute for Medical Innovation and Applied Health Care Economics.
Lalande will maintain his current positions as the Health Net professor and chairman of the Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology and director of both the University of Connecticut Stem Cell Institute and the Institute for Systems Genomics. He will step down from h is position as senior associate dean for research planning and coordination at the UConn School of Medicine.
Genesis Genetics has appointed Tony Gordon to be lab director of the company's UK operations and vice president of its US operations. Gordon will sign off on all patient reports in the UK and lead the company's efforts to expand testing operations throughout the UK. Gordon joins Genesis Genetics from BlueGnome.
Enzymatics said this week that Jason Myers, co-founder and CEO of ArcherDx, has joined the company as CSO in conjunction with its purchase of ArcherDx, a next-generation sequencing software and solutions company, for up to $50 million.
Myers founded ArcherDx, and before that he worked at Ion Torrent, where he was a group leader and senior scientist on applications for the firm's PGM sequencing system, including Amplicon and RNA sequencing methods.
Exact Sciences said last week that William Megan has joined the company as senior VP of finance and principal financial officer.
He is taking over the firm's finance operations from Maneesh Arora, who is stepping down from his post as chief financial officer but is continuing in his other role as chief operating officer and remaining "significantly involved with investor relations matters," the company said.
Megan formerly was at Telephone and Data Systems, where he was president of an IT infrastructure subsidiary for three years. Before that, Megan was CFO and controller at another TDS subsidiary, and a director in management consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
He will receive a base salary of $240,000 and is eligible to earn up to 40 percent of his base in annual bonuses, Exact Sciences said.
Sera Prognostics has appointed Lee Hood, life sciences entrepreneur and founder and president of the Institute for Systems Biology, to serve as a scientific adviser.
Hood, who has been involved in the founding of firms such as Applied Biosystems, Integrated Diagnostics, Amgen, and others will work with the company to develop its clinical proteomic technologies aimed at providing diagnostic information to improve pregnancy outcomes.
Howard McLeod is the new medical director of the Personalized Medicine Institute at the Moffitt Cancer Center. Previously, McLeod was the Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor of Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Additionally, he is the principal investigator for the CREATE Pharmacogenetics Research Network and a member of the Pharmacogenetics Research Network. McLeod directs the Pharmacogenetics for Every Nation Initiative, an effort that aims to help developing countries use genetic information to improve national drug formulary decisions.
Devin Leake has joined Gen9, a developer of DNA synthesis technologies, as vice president of research and development.
Leake previously served as director of global R&D for Thermo Fisher Scientific, having originally joined that company when it acquired Dharmacon, where he was a scientist focused on nucleic acid and RNAi technologies.
Biocartis said this week that Ulrik Cordes has joined the company as chief commercial officer.
Cordes joins Biocartis from Thermo Fisher Scientific, where he held the position of global sales and marketing director of slides and specialty glass since March 2012. Prior to that, Ulrik worked at Dako, now part of Agilent Technologies, where he held a number of positions with increasing responsibility, most recently vice president of marketing operations and vice president of Asia Pacific and export region. Cordes began his career with Pharmacia Biotech, now part of GE Healthcare.
DiaDexus has appointed Ralf Schoenbrunner as senior vice president of research and early development. Previously, he was vice president of research and development and molecular diagnostics at Life Technologies.
Promoted? Changing jobs? GenomeWeb wants to know. E-mail [email protected] to appear in People In The News, a weekly roundup of industry comings and goings.