Ewan Birney
The Global Alliance for Genomics in Health has appointed Ewan Birney to lead its efforts to accelerate medical and research advancements through the responsible sharing of genomic and clinical data. He will assume the new role on Nov. 1. Birney currently serves as director of the European Bioinformatics Institute and as non-executive director of Genomics England. He is also a consultant and advisor to a number of companies, including Oxford Nanopore Technologies and GlaxoSmithKline. Birney was elected a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015, and has worked in the laboratories of leading scientists Adrian Krainer, Toby Gibson, and Iain Campbell.
Laurie Huard, Karol Ford, Tania Obranovich, and John Alsobrook
Clinical Genomics has appointed Laurie Huard as chief operating officer, Karol Ford as vice president of sales and marketing, Tania Obranovich as vice president of intellectual property, legal affairs and compliance, and John Alsobrook as clinical laboratory director.
Huard comes to Clinical Genomics from Helomics where she served as vice president of operations. She has also served as a director for a large integrated hospital laboratory, and has operated a laboratory informatics consulting practice for more than 10 years. Ford comes to Clinical Genomics from Progenity, where she has held various positions. Obranovich currently practices law as a patent attorney. She has spent the last ten years as a partner at a top tier Australian intellectual property firm. Alsobrook comes to Clinical Genomics from DermTech where he served as chief science officer. He also served as CEO, director of discovery, and vice president of clinical laboratory operations at Exagen Diagnostics.
Adrian Lee
Adrian Lee has been appointed director of the Institute for Precision Medicine (IPM), a joint effort by UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh to move biomedical research into personalized clinical care. Lee succeeds Associate Vice Chancellor Jeremy Berg, who will remain as a senior advisor to the IPM. Lee is a professor in the department of pharmacology and chemical biology at the University of Pittsburgh and serves as the director of the Women's Cancer Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.
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.