NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - Gen-Probe has tapped Eric Lai to be senior VP of research and development. Lai previously was VP of pharmacogenetics experimental project coordination and analysis at GlaxoSmithKline. He also served at GSK as VP of discovery and pipeline genetics.
Qiagen has hired Gisela Orth, who has been involved in human resources for nearly twenty years, to serve as VP of global HR.
Clemson University has named Keith Murphy to serve as acting director of the Clemson University Genomics Institute. Murphy also is chair of the school’s genetics and biochemistry department, and his research focus is on dog genetics.
Strategic Diagnostics has appointed Monette Greenway to be VP of marketing and sales, and Robert Laffer to be sales manager for life sciences. Greenway will take over a spot that was left behind by Fran DiNuzzo, who was appointed CEO in November.
Greenway formerly was president of the Integrated Technologies Division of Thermo Fisher Scientific, and she was a VP and GM at Invitrogen. Laffer previously was a regional sales manager at Panomics, and he was a global account executive for the BioPharma division of PerkinElmer’s Life and Analytical Sciences.
Jorge Leon has joined the scientific advisory board at ParagonDx. Leon was a co-founder of the Molecular Diagnostics and Applied Genomics business at Quest Diagnostics, and he served as director of Molecular Diagnostics, senior director of biotechnology, and VP of Applied Genomics.
Gary Gilliland has taken on two posts at Merck, including of VP of Merck Research Laboratories and franchise head of Oncology. Gilliland is a Harvard Medical School professor, where he specializes in stem cells and regenerative biology. He also is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and director for the Leukemia Program at the Dana Farber/Harvard Medical Cancer Center, and director of the Cancer Stem Cell Program at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
He will replace Stephen Friend, who plans to leave the company to pursue an effort to build open access integrative bionetworks, or complex databases, around the world in order to accelerate disease studies.
Fernando Martinez will serve as interim director of the BIO5 Institute at the University of Arizona as of next week. Martinez is a principal investigator for the National Institutes of Health’s National Children’s Study, and he collaborates with two initiatives, the Human Genes, and Environment Research Traineeship and with researchers at the Arizona Genomics Institute and Arizona Research Laboratories.
Gyros moved Erik Walldén into the CEO and president positions, after he had served over the past year as acting CEO. Walldén previously has been CEO of Affibody Holding, CEO of Biacore International and Pyrosequencing, and he is a non-executive director of Exiqon, Proxeon, and VisEn Medical.
Gentel Biosciences has promoted Randal Durnell to be executive VP and COO, and it has hired Dan Clutter to be VP of commercial development. Durnell has been at Gentel serving as VP of commercial operations for over a year, and Clutter previously was involved in sales, marketing, and business development at PerkinElmer, Invitrogen, Roche, Celera, PanVera, Asterand, and NimbleGen.
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