Biography
Dr. Omar Perez has over 17 years designing, deploying, and leading high-visibility oncology initiatives supporting global companion diagnostic developments, strategic partnerships and commercialization opportunities. Before joining AstraZeneca, he oversaw the global CDx developments for the GSK oncology portfolio, leading to diagnostic products for niraparib and dostarlimab. During his time at Pfizer, he led global CDx activities supporting the drug approvals of crizotinib, lorlatinib, dacomitinib talazoparib and inotuzomab. Notably, he led the first FDA approved NGS product for multiple targeted agents and helped establish the Center for Precision Medicine in LATAM to support Pfizer oncology products. Dr. Perez’s background includes roles in biotech and diagnostic companies, including co-founding Nodality, a diagnostic company focused on hematological malignancies. He is an inventor of the multiparametric phospho-proteomic flow technologies and an author of 37 publications and 35 patents.

Biography
Dr. Anna Berry i works in partnership with Syapse’s functional leaders to support product and service development, serves as a subject matter expert to Syapse’s customers, participates in joint-authored research and publications, and advances Syapse’s thought leadership efforts in the area of real-world evidence. Prior to her recent move to Syapse, she served for 6 years as the Deputy Director for Molecular Pathology and Genomics, and as the Scientific Director for the Personalized Medicine Program at the Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle, and concurrently served as Director of Genomics Programs at CellNetix Pathology and Laboratories. Dr. Berry has focused professionally on genomics education and personalized medicine. In these roles, she has given numerous presentations, nationally and internationally, and has served on multiple task forces and committees for several professional organizations and coalitions, spanning Pathology and Oncology focused efforts.

Biography
Christian is responsible for driving business development and incubation in adjacent fields and white spaces at Siemens Healthineers. Christian and his team evaluate opportunities, trigger investments in start-ups, and drive partnership projects – with a particular focus on the field of precision medicine. Christian also serves on the board of associations and start-up companies focusing on precision medicine. Christian brings more than 15 years of experience in new business development and has successfully incubated a variety of new products, developed strategies for leading global companies, and is the (co)-inventor of assorted patent families. He is driven by his passion to bridge the chasm between innovative ideas and the commercialization of new technologies.

Talk
Reimagining Oncology - Closing the Gaps between Science and Clinic
Today we see major gaps in oncology care delivery when it comes to transferring innovation from scientific discovery into clinical practice. Together with experienced industry professionals we will discuss persisting gaps along the oncology patient journey and how they can be addressed by making use of emerging trends.

Biography
Jerry Mitchell has a current focus on national education and support for oncologists around comprehensive genomic profiling with an attention to therapeutic applications. Prior to joining Foundation Medicine he was a practicing oncologist at the Mark H. Zangmeister Center in Columbus, OH. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Oncology, Hematology, and Hospice and Palliative Care. He received his MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University with an emphasis on corporate strategy.

Biography
Ron is a 35+ year veteran of the Diagnostics and Molecular Diagnostics markets and is currently the CEO of Oncocyte. He was an early pioneer in the development and commercialization of molecular panels in Oncology. He is an ardent ambassador for decentralization of molecular testing to ensure access to this life saving information to all patients in all communities.

Biography
Nikki focuses on accelerating access to precision medicine, especially biomarker testing, for lung cancer patients. Nikki came into patient advocacy from multiple roles at pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies including Genentech, Novartis, and Grifols where she collaborated with patient advocacy groups across different cancer types and other diseases in the US and around the world. This has given her a great vantage point to see the true value of patient advocacy-led multi-stakeholder efforts for jump-starting conversations. She believes that patient advocacy organizations play an essential role in convening different players from government to providers, payers, and industry and leading or contributing to critical work that has long lasting impact on patient care.

Biography
Jenn Higgins is responsible for leading and directing the overall government affairs, patient advocacy, public policy, and corporate communications functions for Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH). As a veteran of Washington DC, Jenn serves as the company’s point of contact with Congress and the Administration, actively working with key health care stakeholders to help shape public debate around issues that matter to Guardant Health. Jenn has spent the past twenty years using her tenacity and policy knowledge to help corporate executives navigate a constantly changing legislative and regulatory landscape. As a lobbyist, Jenn has represented a wide variety of Fortune 500 health care companies before Congress and the Administration, serving as Partner with two prominent lobbying firms. She also worked as an analyst and Special Assistant at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with an emphasis on Medicare policy. Jenn attended Davidson College where she received a B.A. in Medical Economics and Ethics.

Biography
Kat Kwiatkowski, PhD, is an Epidemiologist and currently the SVP Clinical Development at Strata Oncology overseeing the functions of Clinical Development & Operations, Medical Affairs, Translational Medicine, and Regulatory. Strata is a precision oncology company committed to accelerating the impact of precision medicine for patients with cancer. Kat led the design and build of two of the largest prospective cohort studies in the world including the Strata Trial (NGS) and the Sentinel Trial (ctDNA recurrence & treatment monitoring). These studies inform the newly designed StrataPATH study, an interventional therapeutic study to advance biomarker hypotheses. Prior to Strata, Kat worked in various Clinical Development roles in both diagnostics and pharma including Affymetrix where she and team were the first to receive FDA clearance for the first whole genome microarray in cytogenetics. Kat is passionate about helping cancer patients get the best personalized care.

Biography
Ms. Rougier-Chapman is a strategic leader with deep domain expertise spanning the diagnostics, genomics and life science sectors. Over the past two decades, she has been delivering successful business growth for large multinational and rapidly scaling companies through commercialization of genomic solutions for clinical and research use. As Head of Labcorp Oncology Marketing, she is responsible for expanding the Labcorp brand and revenues by leading go-to-market efforts including growth strategy, product marketing, thought leadership and marketing programs spanning oncology drug development and diagnostics. She recently joined Labcorp through the acquisition of PGDx where she was SVP, Head of Marketing & Commercial Strategy. Ms. Rougier-Chapman also held sales & marketing leadership roles at Invitae, ArcherDx, Bionano Genomics, Agilent Technologies, as well as various commercial roles at Advanced Cell Diagnostics, Cogenics, Incyte Genomics, and Stratagene. She holds an M.S. in Molecular Cancer Biology and a B.S. in Biology from Duke University.

Clinical Dx Showcase:
PGDx
Personal Genome Diagnostics is empowering the fight against cancer by unlocking actionable information from the genome. We have developed an innovative and comprehensive portfolio of RUO and IVD tissue-based and non-invasive liquid biopsy genomic profiling solutions for use in laboratories worldwide.

LBx: Expanding Access to Precision Medicine with Innovations in Drug Dev. & Dx
Partner with PGDx from biomarker discovery to diagnosis and unlock the power of genomic data

Biography
Ben Gonzales serves as the leader of Business Development efforts for Biognosys in North America. With a history in mass spectrometry and proteomics Ben has been able to successfully guide the team in support of solutions in Precision Medicine and Unbiased Discovery.

Biography
Debanti leads due diligence activities on commercial opportunities of interest, and manages an international portfolio of oncology-focused industry-academic research projects.

Biography
Dr. Rangarajan Sampath is Senior Vice President and Head of Center for Innovation in Diagnostics at Siemens Healthineers, where he leads Innovation and new product development in the areas of oncology, neurology and infectious diseases. CID’s focus is to drive disruptive next generation innovation, development and commercialization of in-vitro diagnostics, automation and digital health solutions. Prior to this, Dr. Sampath was Chief Scientific Officer at Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), a Geneva-based non-profit organization (NGO) focused on bringing cutting edge diagnostics to low- and middle- income countries. Dr. Sampath headed FIND’s research and development organization, leading its innovation, product development and disease programs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he led a team of researchers to set up an evaluation framework to provide independent assessment of commercially available assays to aid procurement and country prioritization decisions. He also represented FIND as a Working Group member in the Access to COVID Tools -Accelerator Diagnostics (ACT-A Dx) Partnership, co-convened by FIND and the Global Fund. From 1997-2017, Dr. Sampath served as a Volwiler Senior Research Fellow and Senior Director of R&D for the Ibis Division of Abbott. He led Ibis’ R&D efforts in infectious disease diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance diagnostics and surveillance, and was responsible for applications development, validation, data analysis and reporting for the Ibis PCR/ESI-MS based IRIDICA platform. Dr. Sampath was the co-founder of Ibis Biosciences, Inc. and a co-inventor of the IRIDICA (CE-IVD) infectious disease diagnostics platform. Dr. Sampath is a recognized leader in the field, with over 100 publications and over 40 issued patents in infectious disease diagnostics. He was an invited participant at the White House National Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship and was an active member of the AdvamedDx Industry Forum for the global commitment on developing diagnostic tests to fight AMR. He has been an invited speaker at many public forums such as at the Institute of Medicine, Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and Parenteral Drug Association (PDA). He was a key member of an FDA/PDA task force involved in defining the future of viral screening for cell substrates. Dr. Sampath most recently served for a 3-year term as a member of the Diagnostics Committee for IDSA. His research interests include sepsis, antimicrobial strategy development, pathogen discovery, fevers of unknown origin, tropical diseases, epidemiological surveillance and biothreat detection.

Talk
Improving Cancer Outcomes through Early Precision Diagnostics
Exponentially growing knowledge and precise technologies provide great opportunity for individualization of therapeutic intervention. Scalable precision diagnostics will improve disease outcomes through early detection and monitoring in cancer patients. Digital integration of data is key to achieving both. This talk will focus on combining “omics” data with imaging for comprehensive cancer care.

Biography
Over 30 years of experience in life science consulting, investment and portfolio management, advising biotech, pharma, diagnostics and device companies, investment firms, universities and government agencies worldwide. Co-founder, venture partner and key person of Global Biomedical Partners, managing International Biomedicine Holdings, a $400 million fund based in Basel, Switzerland. Former member of Board of Directors of Innodia, Inc. and Board observer of Syntonix Pharmaceuticals. Business analyst in the corporate venture capital office of WR Grace & Co. A breast cancer survivor since 2000, Vivian applies her personal experience as a patient and professional experience as a life science industry consultant to her cancer advocacy work. Vivian collaborates with research investigators at academic institutions across the US and abroad to provide patient perspective in shaping grant applications to, and research projects funded by, US Department of Defense (DoD), California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP), Susan G. Komen, Sidney Kimmel Foundation, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)’s Conquer Cancer Foundation and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). She is an Advocate Advisor to the University of California’s Athena Breast Health Network, providing patient input for its WISDOM Study on personalized breast cancer screening, for which Athena has been awarded a $14 million Pragmatic Clinical Studies grant by PCORI. Vivian has served as a Consumer Reviewer for the DoD Breast Cancer Research Program, and as a Peer Reviewer for Komen grants on the national and local levels. She has served as an Advocate Observer on the California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP) Community Impact Review Panel. Vivian serves on the Volunteer Leadership Council of the American Cancer Society’s California Chinese Unit and is a member of Bay Area Young Survivors (BAYS), mentoring newly diagnosed patients. Vivian is a member of Komen’s Advocate In Sciences program and a graduate of National Breast Cancer Coalition’s Project LEAD Institute as well as Research Advocacy Network’s Focus on Science scholar program. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University and conducted research in the Tumor Immunology department of Dana Farber Cancer Center.

Biography
Erika is the Designer/Builder/Leader of ONE CANCER PLACE - the Cancer Learning Community. ONE CANCER PLACE is the new destination for a new way of understanding cancer. Our PASSION is for the implementation of universal biomarker testing for all cancer patients at first-line treatment, regardless of staging.

Biography
Mary Walters is a clinical pharmacist at Advocate Aurora Health in Milwaukee who serves as a co-director of the Oncology Precision Medicine program, oncology pharmacy practice counsel chair, and Aurora specialty pharmacy oncology specialist. Walters obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry with a biochemistry concentration at Saint Catherine University in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 2012 and her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2016. Walters trained as a PGY-1 pharmacy resident at the Level 1 Trauma Center, North Memorial Medical Center, in Robbinsdale, Minnesota where she developed a ketamine pain management protocol and an interest in oncology. For her PGY-2, Walters specialized in oncology at Advocate Aurora, optimizing pharmacy transition of care for patients with cancer. Walters remained at Advocate Aurora and has served as a clinical pharmacist in the Milwaukee metro area cancer clinics and inpatient services for three years.

Biography
Dr. Ali’s Clinical and academic interests are in discovering the impact of ethnic disparities in the biology of different neoplastic processes. Dr. Ali became interested in keloid disorder as it is another disorder where ethnicity plays a significant role in the biology and clinical presentation of the disease process. Dr. Ali is an active participant in national and international trials through his active participation with the national cancer institute cooperative group research mechanism and numerous industry-supported clinical trials. He is an active member of both the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) and NRG Oncology. He is bringing all his clinical trial expertise to design and conduct trials that we are planning to conduct in the very near future in keloid patients. Dr. Ali is an active member of the American Medical Association, American Society of Clinical Oncology, European society of clinical oncology, and the Michigan Society of Hematology and Oncology.

Biography
Cynthia Pointer is the Senior Vice President of Global Market Access & Policy at Genapsys Inc. In this role, she is responsible for market access strategy development, product adoption, and execution of global market advocacy for Genapsys. Cynthia brings over 25 years of immense commercial experience to Genapsys. Her expertise includes global reimbursement, health policy, government affairs, and CMS account management. Cynthia is a recognized leader in managing multinational cross-functional teams and resources to implement strategic reimbursement initiatives specializing in the therapeutic areas of oncology, transplant, age-related macular degeneration, human genetic therapies, pain, and molecular diagnostics. Cynthia has served in major leadership positions in both the pharmaceutical and diagnostic space. Prior to joining Genapsys, Cynthia was the Senior Vice President of Global Market Access at ArcherDX (acquired by Invitae in 2020), a global leader in comprehensive cancer genetics and precision oncology. She has also held various leadership positions at Recro Pharma, Genzyme, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Cynthia is uniquely qualified to achieve Genapsys’ mission of transforming research and diagnostics with an affordable, scalable genomic sequencing ecosystem. Cynthia holds a Master of Arts degree specializing in clinical psychology from Marymount University. Cynthia was also voted as one of the top 25 most influential women in biotech during 2020.

Biography
Dr. Ravindra Kolhe is a Leon Henri Charbonnier Endowed Chair of Pathology at Augusta University and is the inaugural Associate Dean for translation research at Medical College of Georgia. He also serves as the Associate Cancer Center Director for Genomics at the Georgia Cancer Center. Currently, Kolhe leads an NCI-designated translational pathology laboratory for MATCH testing which is focused on comprehensive genomic testing in oncology. He co-founded a consortium (SEQUOIA) of 40+ clinical laboratories across the globe for the democratization of NGS testing in oncology & successfully helped multiple labs to bring NGS testing in-house. He served on the Georgia Governor’s Task Force for COVID-19 and successfully led the COVID-19 screening program for the State of Georgia during the early Pandemic. Kolhe is also a co-founder of a COVID-19 Host Genome Structural Variation Consortium and coordinated a global network of researchers who are contributing to our collective knowledge on host genome response to the SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease. He has led several studies, focused on adapting and validating newer technologies (NGS, RNA-seq, OGM, etc) in CLIA laboratories by establishing PLA & Z-codes and reimbursement. He has authored more than 90+ peer-reviewed publications and serves on multiple CAP committees and scientific advisory boards for numerous profit and non-profit organizations.

Biography
Dr. Miller is currently Vice President of Translation Medicine at Blueprint Medicines, a Cambridge-based company focused on oncology precision medicine. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology at Caltech where he studied the structure, biochemistry and enzymology of the Type II Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkely he moved to industry where over 30 years he has been involved in the drug discovery/development process from new target identification/validation, lead optimization and clinical development through registration. Dr. Miller and his groups have contributed to 27 INDs and 9 approved NDAs/BLAs that have provided new treatment options to patients both in the oncology and non-oncology setting.

Biography
Dr. Paul Billings has devoted his life to studying and teaching medicine and genetics, while accelerating the use of a broad range of novel genomic technologies in clinical settings. As Chief Executive Officer, he leads strategy and growth for Biological Dynamics’ highly differentiated and proprietary platform for analyzing extracellular vesicles and exo-proteins to improve disease detection and management. Over decades in healthcare, he has established key business partnerships, driving adoption of innovative discoveries and commercial success. Dr. Billings has held academic appointments at Harvard, U.C. San Francisco, Stanford, and U.C. Berkeley; and served as board-certified internist and medical geneticist at leading medical centers. He has more than 225 biomedical citations and his published doctoral studies at Harvard were supervised by Dr. Baruj Benacerraf, who subsequently received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. He has served as Director or Advisor to numerous advisory boards and committees focused on medicine and genomic technologies.

Biography
Kat Kwiatkowski, PhD, is an Epidemiologist and currently the SVP Clinical Development at Strata Oncology overseeing the functions of Clinical Development & Operations, Medical Affairs, Translational Medicine, and Regulatory. Strata is a precision oncology company committed to accelerating the impact of precision medicine for patients with cancer. Kat led the design and build of two of the largest prospective cohort studies in the world including the Strata Trial (NGS) and the Sentinel Trial (ctDNA recurrence & treatment monitoring). These studies inform the newly designed StrataPATH study, an interventional therapeutic study to advance biomarker hypotheses. Prior to Strata, Kat worked in various Clinical Development roles in both diagnostics and pharma including Affymetrix where she and team were the first to receive FDA clearance for the first whole genome microarray in cytogenetics. Kat is passionate about helping cancer patients get the best personalized care.

Biography
Isma is passionate about patient involvement in the Research & Development of innovative medicines, the life-cycle management of marketed products and is working extensively with various stakeholders to accelerate access to medicines. Prior to her current role, Isma was responsible for advancing Amgen’s expertise and leadership in Global Patient Safety & Labeling. With over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, she has held various roles with increasing level of responsibility in different organizations. Prior to joining Amgen, she served as Vice President and Head of Safety Surveillance and Risk Management at Sanofi Genzyme and Executive Vice President with Pfizer Consumer Health Care. She has also worked in Clinical Development, Medical Affairs and Executive Management at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly France. Isma earned her MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Masters in Bioethics from the U Pennsylvania and her medical degree in Psychiatry from Faculte de Medecine d’Alger.

Biography
The Weissman Professor of Precision Medicine at the Technion; the Chairman of Department of Community Medicine and Epidemiology at Carmel Medical Center in Haifa, and Director of Clalit National Cancer Control Center and advisor of the Clalit Personalized Medicine Program; am an elected member of the National Israeli Academy of Scientific Medicine. I earned my M.D. degree from Ben-Gurion University, and Ph.D. degree from the SPH, UNC Chapel Hill. I am a public health expert and a molecular epidemiologist with particular interest in cancer predisposition and gene-environment interactions. With 370 publications, based on large-scale case-control studies with some 50,000 participants of colorectal, breast, lung, gynecological and pancreatic cancers. I am coordinating the national cancer screening programs and am studying unique cancer founder mutations patterns in a clinical service with 3500 carriers. I am currently concentrating on translational research on moving knowledge in molecular/precision medicine into service in primary care facilities.

Talk
Combined Utilization of Precision Medicine Technologies in Primary Clinics
A project is underway to study the implementation of advanced genomic, microbiomic, proteomic and sensor technologies in a primary care clinic in Israel, evaluating the response of the target population, of the clinic's medical team, the clinical effort involved and the bioinformatic interpretation of mega amounts of data per participant.

Biography
Dr. Laura van ‘t Veer is a world-renowned molecular biologist whose research focuses on precision medicine to advance patient management. She is co-leader of the Breast Oncology Program at UCSF and co-founder of Agendia Inc. As inventor of MammaPrint she has made a seminal impact on “rightsizing” the treatment of breast cancer. A recent publication on the MINDACT trial shows that 46% of breast cancer patients who are clinically high risk and considered for chemotherapy, can safely forgo this treatment based on a Low Risk MammaPrint result. Dr. van ‘t Veer is co-PI of the multicenter adaptive clinical trial I-SPY2 overseeing FDA-IDE ‘Response-Predictive-Subtyping’ companion diagnostics. She has over 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles and is co-inventor of 9 patents. Dr. van 't Veer received the prestigious European Union Women Innovator Award, 2nd prize in 2014, the 2015 European Patent Office Inventor Award, and is a 2020 PMWC Luminary award recipient.

Biography
Co-founder at Hawkeye Bio, responsible for scientific and clinical programs. Focused on development of company's novel biosensor technology for early cancer detection.

Biography
Dr. Ji research focus is developing novel genomic technologies to identify cancer drug targets and new diagnostic modalities.

Talk
Single molecule methylation profiling of circulating tumor DNA
We developed a new approach for determining methylation profiles from circulating tumor DNA. We leverage single molecule sequencing and avoid many of the issues that affect tumor methylation profiles from cell free DNA. Our results indicate that this approach can detect cancer and be used for longitudinal monitoring.