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People in the News: Warren Alpert Prize Winners, MDxHealth Global Commercial Team, and more

Warren Alpert Foundation Prize Winners

Rodolphe Barrangou, Philippe Horvath, Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier, and Virginijus Siksnys have been awarded the 2016 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize for their contribution to the understanding of the CRISPR bacterial defense system:

  • Barrangou is an associate professor in the department of food, bioprocessing, and nutrition sciences, and the Todd R. Klaenhammer distinguished scholar in probiotics research at North Carolina State University.
  • Horvath is a senior scientist at DuPont in Dangé-Saint-Romain, France.
  • Doudna holds the Li Ka Shing Chancellor's chair in biomedical and health sciences, and is a professor of molecular and cell biology and of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.
  • Charpentier is a scientific member and director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, and a professor at Umeå University in Sweden.
  • Siksnys is a professor, chief scientist, and department head at the Institute of Biotechnology at Vilnius University in Lithuania.

This year's recipients will share an unrestricted award of $500,000 and will be honored at a symposium at Harvard Medical School on Oct. 6.


MDxHealth Global Commercial Team for SelectMDx

MDxHealth has appointed Brett Swansiger as senior vice president of senior development, George Skinner as senior director European commercial operations, Harry Rentrop as sales director of Benelux, and Maurizio Ballerini as sales director of company operations in Italy. The four will make up the company's new global commercial team:

  • Swansiger joins MDxHealth from Agendia where he served as vice president of managed care and Asia market access. Previously, he held positions at Prometheus Laboratories and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
  • Skinner comes to MDxHealth after spending the majority of his career at Gen-Probe (Hologic).
  • Rentrop joins MDxHealth after holding a position at Noviogendix. He has previously held various senior sales positions at Roussel Laboratoria, Lederle, Yamanouchi, and Astellas Pharma.
  • Ballerini's last position was with Gen-Probe (Hologic). He has also held sales and marketing positions at Abbott Laboratories and Randox Labs.

Jay Flatley and Francis deSouza

Illumina announced that Chairman and CEO Jay Flatley has been appointed executive chairman of the board, and that current president Francis deSouza will take over as CEO. DeSouza will also continue to serve as president of the company and as a board member. The appointments, effective July 5, have been unanimously approved by the board.


For more recent items on executive appointments and promotions in the omics and molecular diagnostics industries, please see the People in the News page on our website.