Speakers & Discussion Leaders

Eric Alm, PhD is an Associate Professor of Biological Engineering and Civil & Environmental Engineering at MIT, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute. His work spans a diverse range of topics from the origins of life to microbial ecology. His most recent work is focused on understanding the structure and dynamics of the human microbiome.
Madeleine Ball, PhD is Director of Biology for the Personal Genome Project. She has been involved in developing the computational and literature review methods used to interpret PGP genomes and is a leading developer of GET-Evidence, the PGP’s system for genome interpretation. She is also an advocate for using Wikipedia as a knowledge sharing resource. Her contributions include the Genetics page and other core genetics material, as well as helping develop an offline version of Wikipedia now used by hundreds of thousands of children.
As Chief Instigator and CEO at Genomera, Greg Biggers helps fuel the participant-driven research movement. Where people move from subjects to participants. Where individuals grow from n=they to n=me to n=we. Where patients (Genomera just calls them people) drive the agenda and engage with one another to grow evidence more quickly than the traditional bottlenecks allow. Biggers also serves on the boards of Genetic Alliance, an elementary school, and a community development organization. When not working on the future of digital health, he can often be found sailing a Santana 22 on San Francisco Bay.
Jason Bobe is the Executive Director of PersonalGenomes.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that aims to make genomes useful for humankind through research initiatives like the Personal Genome Project and the BioWeatherMap. He is also the co-founder of DIYbio.org, an organization that aims to help establish a vibrant, productive and safe community of do-it-yourself biologists worldwide. The focus of his work is making extraordinary biotechnologies ready for everyday use.
George Church, PhD is Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Wyss Institute, Director of the Center for Computational Genetics, Director of the NIH Center for Excellence in Genomic Science (on human genome engineering), founder of PGP and guinea PiG#1. He is a member of the NAS and NAE and Franklin Laureate for Achievement in Science.
Steven Dean leads the NY chapter of Quantified Self and is a partner at Prehype, a product innovation studio that incubates new digital companies on behalf of corporations and VCs. With a broad entrepreneurial, design and product development background, he has designed and built new ventures, products and services for some of the most innovative consumer health and wellness brands. Steven lectures on the topics of behavior change, quantified self, health innovation and service design and has taught at NYU ITP, Parsons and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Joel Dudley, PhD is Director of Informatics at NuMedii, Inc., and Consulting Professor of Systems Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University. His research focuses on the application of translational bioinformatics and integrative genomics in the areas of biomarker discovery, drug discovery, precision medicine, and clinical genomics. Joel is co-author (with Konrad Karczewski) of the upcoming book Exploring Personal Genomics (Oxford University Press), which will serve as an accessible guide to educate and enable individuals in personal genome exploration. Joel holds a BS in Microbiology from Arizona State University, and a PhD in Biomedical Informatics from Stanford University.
David Ewing Duncan is an award-winning, best-selling author of seven books published in 19 languages; he is a journalist and a television, radio and film producer and correspondent. His most recent book is the bestseller Experimental Man: What one man’s body reveals about his future, your health, and our toxic world. He is a Correspondent for Atlantic.com, and the Chief Correspondent of public radio’s Biotech Nation, heard on NPR Talk. David writes for The New York Times, Fortune, Wired, National Geographic, Discover, Atlantic Monthly, and many other publications. He is the Founding Director of the Center of Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley. He has been a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition, and a contributing editor for Wired, Discover and Conde Nast Portfolio. He is a former special correspondent and producer for ABC Nightline and a correspondent for NOVA’s ScienceNOW! David has won numerous awards including the Magazine Story of the Year from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His articles have twice been cited in nominations for National Magazine Awards, and his work has appeared twice in The Best American Science and Nature Writing. He is at work on a TED book on extreme aging. David lives in San Francisco.
Esther Dyson is chairman of EDventure Holdings and sits on the boards of 23andMe, Voxiva and PersonalGenomes.org, among many other entitites. She is a believer in user-generated health as the best way to reduce the costs of health care, and is looking for investments in that new market. She is also PGP#3. Her other investments include Applied Proteomics, Genomera, Greengoose, Habit Labs, Health Engage, Health Rally, Health Tap, Keas, Medico, Medivo, Omada Health, Organized Wisdom, PatientsLikeMe, PatientsKnowBest, Resilient, Tocagen, Vita Portal (Russia), Valkee. (Photo credit: Tom Gruber)
Juan Enriquez is an experienced business leader, author, and academic who is recognized as a leading authority on the economic and political impacts of life sciences. He is a Managing Director in Excel Venture Management, a venture capital firm that invests in life science companies. He was the founding director of Harvard Business School’s Life Sciences Project. He then founded Biotechonomy LLC, a life sciences research and investment firm. In 2005, he co-founded Synthetic Genomics, Inc., a synthetic biology company. He is the author of the best-selling _As the Future Catches You, an analysis of the impact of genomics on business and society. His latest book _Untied States explores why, as technology advances, some countries are successful while others disappear. Mr. Enriquez serves on a number of boards including PersonalGenomes.org, Cabot Corp., The Chairman’s International Council of the America’s Society, and the Visiting Committee of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center. He earned a BA and MBA from Harvard, with Honors.
Preston W. (Pete) Estep, PhD is Director of Gerontology for the Personal Genome Project and Chief Scientific Officer, TeloMe, Inc. In addition to his role as PGP Director of Gerontology, he manages saliva collection and telomere analysis projects. He has invented a variety of chemical and molecular technologies, including methods for measuring lengths of telomeric repeats, and he has founded and is a current or past adviser to many cutting edge biotech companies and non-profit organizations. He also has written and lectured extensively on the evolution of aging and senescence, and on the science and ethics of human life extension and cognitive enhancement.
Jose Gomez-Marquez is a the principal medical device designer at the Little Devices lab at MIT and creator of MIT’s first course on affordable medical device hardware, D-Lab Health. He is co-inventor the MEDIKit platform, a series of design building blocks that empower doctors and nurses in developing countries to invent their own medical technologies. His group other research projects include crowdsourced diagnostics, paper microfluidics, and affordable diagnostics for extreme environments. Jose serves on the European Union’s Science Against Poverty Taskforce and has participated as an expert advisor in the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In 2009, Jose was selected to Technology Review’s T35, which also named him Humanitarian of the Year. In 2011 he was named a TED Fellow and is a co-founder of LDTC+Labs.
Steven J. Gordon, Ph.D. is the co-founder and CEO of Intelligent Bio-Systems, Inc. Before co-founding Intelligent Bio-Systems, Steven founded Intelligent Automation Systems, a provider of automation and instrumentation technology and products for the consumer, semiconductor, photonics, and life sciences industries. Steven led Intelligent Automation Systems from its inception in 1987 through its sale to Brooks Automation in 2002. In the 1990s, innovative instruments developed by the company helped researchers reach the goals of the Human Genome Project earlier than originally expected. Steven has Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT.
Robert C. Green, MD, MPH is a medical geneticist and a leading researcher in translational genomics and health outcomes. For 12 years, Dr. Green has directed the NIH-funded REVEAL Study, in which a multi-disciplinary team has conducted 4 separate multi-center randomized clinical trials collectively enrolling 1100 individuals to explore emerging themes in translational genomics. Dr. Green also co-directs the NIH-funded PGen Study, the first prospective research on the medical impact of direct-to-consumer genetic testing services. Most recently, he is leading a Brigham-Harvard Medical School team of 40 scientists in the NIH-funded MedSeq Project, the first outcomes study to explore the impact of whole genome sequencing in clinical medicine. Dr. Green is currently Associate Director for Research of the Partners Center for Personalized Genetic Medicine and an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Genetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Peter K. Gregersen, MD is Director of the Robert S. Boas Center for Genomics and Human Genetics at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, located within the North Shore LIJ Health System. He has been a leader in the genetic analysis of human autoimmune disorders, having founded or collaborated on major international consortia on the genetics of rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus, myasthenia gravis, myositis and many others. These and related projects have catalyzed the formation of many population resources based at the Feinstein Institute that enable the study of genotype-phenotype relationships in both normal and disease affected subjects. Over the last decade, he has also focused on the genetics of rare cognitive traits including absolute pitch, synesthesia and other aspects of musical perception.
Geraldine A. Hamilton, Ph.D is a research scientist at the Wyss Institute. Her career spans from academic research to biotech start-ups and large Pharma, with over 10 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Hamilton’s research focus has been on the development and application of human relevant in vitro models for drug discovery applications. She was one of the founding scientists, VP of Scientific Operations and Director of Cell Products, in a start-up biotech company (CellzDirect), that successfully translated and commercialized technology from academic research to supply the pharmaceutical industry with hepatic cell products and services for safety assessment and drug-metabolism studies. Hamilton received her Ph.D. in cell biology/toxicology from the University of Hertfordshire (England) in conjunction with GlaxoSmithkline, followed by a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of North Carolina. Her current research interests and prior experience include: organs on-a-chip, toxicology and drug metabolism, liver cell biology, mechanisms regulating gene expression and differentiation, regulation of nuclear receptors and transcriptional activation in hepatocytes by xenobiotics, human cell isolation and cryopreservation techniques.
Ira Klein, MD, MBA is the Chief of Staff to the Chief Medical Officer at Aetna, having joined Aetna in 2006. Previously, he was the Medical Director for Quality and Case Management at Bayshore Community Health Services in New Jersey, and before that, the Chief Medical Officer of Elderplan, a Medicare Social HMO that focused on the frail elderly. His early career was as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, teaching and practicing Internal Medicine.
Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD is a professor at Harvard Medical School who applies computational techniques, whole genome analysis, and functional genomics to study human diseases through the developmental lens, and particularly through the use of animal model systems. Specific diseases of interest are neurodevelopmental disorders and carcinogenesis. The use of whole healthcare systems as “living laboratories” to drive discovery research in the genomic area compliments his basic research agenda by providing population-level study tools.
Elena Kowalsky is a research coordinator at the Robert S. Boas Center for Genomics and Human Genetics at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, located within the North Shore LIJ Health System. She works as co-investigator with Peter K. Gregersen, MD, (Director of the Robert S. Boas Center) on the genetics of absolute pitch, synesthesia and related cognitive traits. She is an actively performing musician with a degree from the Aaron Copland School of Music and experiences absolute pitch. In addition, she focuses on the study and performance of Georgian polyphonic vocal music, which includes the use of microtones.
Jimmy Lin leads Rare Genomics Institute, a non-profit biotech venture that microfunds and enables genome sequencing for children with rare and orphan diseases. He is also a faculty member in the department of Pathology in Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to RGI, he was the the lead computational biologist for the ground-breaking cancer genome sequencing efforts from the Vogelstein Lab at Johns Hopkins. Jimmy holds a BA/BS from Yale University, MHS in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and is completing his MD/PhD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His passion is to bring sequencing technologies for those in need using a sustainable social entrepreneurship model. For these efforts, he was awarded the TED fellowship in 2012.
Jeantine E. Lunshof, PhD is a philosopher and bioethicist, Ethics Consultant to the Personal Genome Project and to the Center for Excellence in Genomic Science - CCV. Together with Dan Vorhaus and George Church she developed in 2006 the model of “open consent” that forms the normative backbone of the PGP. Jeantine recently received a prestigious Marie Curie Fellowship from the European Commission to pursue a research program on systems biology-based concepts of health and disease, and the development of a systems approach for ethics.
Daniel MacArthur, PhD is a group leader in the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an affiliate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. His research focuses on the functional interpretation of large-scale human genome sequencing data. He recently coordinated a survey of loss-of-function variants in human protein-coding genes as part of the 1000 Genomes Project, which was published in Science in January 2012.
Holly Menninger, PhD is the Director of Public Science for Your Wild Life. Your Wild Life is an outreach and science communication program based at NC State University that engages the public in studying, understanding, and celebrating the biodiversity associated with our every day lives - from our belly buttons to our backyards. She earned a PhD in ecology from the University of Maryland, and has worked at the intersection of science and society - in science policy, science communication and natural resource management.
James Musick is an interactive digital media strategist, focusing on the convergence of social and mobile technologies. As the Director of Social Media & Web Communications at Genentech, Musick integrates strategic business value with user experience and adoption through the development of mobile, social, and interactive initiatives. His background includes a doctorate in neurophysiology from the University of Washington. There his creation of neural behavior computer models sparked an interest, and then a career, in software engineering and architecture in the fledgling social/knowledge management/collaboration software space. Musick complemented his enterprise software experience with work in corporate IT strategy and then as a strategy director for a digital agency.
Ken Nakayama, PhD is the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He studies vision. How do we see? What is it about the ever changing structure of light impinging on our mobile eyes that enables us to pick up information about the environment around us? What is it about our brain and its neural activity allows us to see so much and so effortlessly? How is it that we can control our eyes and bodies to seek out information and to act in the physical world? Recently, he has embarked on research program to understand the perception and recognition of faces.
Svante Pääbo, PhD is director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. His research aims to better understand human origins and early migration patterns. TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the year in 2007. He led a team of researchers who extracted DNA from ancient fossils and generated the first draft sequence of the Neandertal genome.
Eric D. Perakslis, PhD, is currently Chief Information Officer and Chief Scientist (Informatics) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In this new role, Eric is responsible for modernizing and enhancing the IT capabilities as well as the in silico scientific capabilities at FDA. Prior to FDA, Eric was Senior Vice President of R&D Information Technology at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals R&D and was a member of the Corporate Office of Science and Technology. Before joining J&J, Eric was the Group leader of Scientific Computing at ArQule Inc. and he began his professional career with the Army Corps of Engineers. Eric has a PhD in chemical and biochemical engineering from Drexel University and also holds B.S.Che and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering.
Stefan Roever is CEO of Genia, Inc. He has a broad entrepreneurial, software, and finance background. He was Co-Founder and CEO of Brokat Technologies, an encryption banking software company. Brokat reached a several billion dollar market cap and went public in 1998 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on NASDAQ in 2000. Mr. Roever was honored with the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Germany. He is an active private equity investor and currently serves as Chairman of WRS Materials, a roll-up of wafer reclaim companies. Mr. Roever also is a two time award holder of Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. He earned degrees in both economics and law from the University of Tuebingen.
Larry Smarr, PhD is the founding Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), a UC San Diego/UC Irvine partnership, and holds the Harry E. Gruber professorship in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) of UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. In 2006 he received the IEEE Computer Society Tsutomu Kanai Award for his lifetime achievements in distributed computing systems. For the last 7 years he has been the PI of the Moore Foundation CAMERA global microbial metagenomics computational repository. His personal interests include growing orchids, snorkeling coral reefs, and quantifying the state of his body.
Gregory Stock, the co-founder and CEO of Ecoeos, founded Signum Biosciences, which is developing therapeutics for Alzheimer’s, and the Program on Medicine and Technology at UCLA’s School of Medicine. His book, Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future, won the Kistler Book Prize for Science books. He also wrote Engineering The Human Germline, Metaman, and The Book of Questions, which now has been translated into 19 languages. Stock sits on the editorial boards of The Journal of Evolution and Technology, and Rejuvenation Research. He has debated biotech policy with Jeremy Rifkin, Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama and other key figures, and sits on the California Advisory Committee on Stem Cells and Reproductive Cloning. Stock has a Ph.D in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins and an MBA from Harvard.
Latanya Sweeney, PhD has made a career of weaving technology and policy together. Dr. Sweeney develops algorithms and constructs real-world systems that allow information to be shared with provable guarantees of privacy (legally and scientifically) while remaining practically useful. Dr. Sweeney has made numerous discoveries related to identifiability and privacy technologies and she has had significant impact on American privacy policy. Dr. Sweeney is a Visiting Professor and Scholar at Harvard University, was a Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and remains the Director and founder of the Data Privacy Lab, now at Harvard University.
Michael Vincent, MD, PhD serves as Vice President and Head of Clinical Research for Pfizer’s BioTherapeutics’ R&D organization. As Head of Clinical Research, Michael is responsible for the planning and execution of BioTx Clinical Trials and for ensuring Precision Medicine strategies are successfully embedded in BioTx projects through proof of concept. Prior to joining Pfizer, Michael was an Executive Medical Director for Amgen’s Medical Sciences division, where he was responsible for progression of all named therapeutic candidates globally in inflammation and neuroscience therapeutic areas through Phase 2 PoC. In addition to completing fellowship training in rheumatology at both Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Fletcher Allen Health Care Medical Center of Vermont, Michael previously served as attending physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as Instructor in Medicine at Harvard University.
Daniel Vorhaus, JD is a corporate attorney at the law firm of Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson in Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as an ELSI advisor to the Personal Genome Project and Editor of the Genomics Law Report. Dan’s legal practice specializes in assisting technology and life sciences entrepreneurs, investors, companies and investors with the full range of their corporate, commercial and strategic legal needs.
Dana Waring is a co-founder of the Personal Genetics Education Project (pgEd.org). Based in the Wu laboratory at Harvard Medical School, pgEd promotes dialogues on the ethical, legal and social issues in personal genetics through workshops for the general public, conference presentations, and educational events at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels. It is also working with MIT Press to produce a handbook for healthcare workers and their clients. Dana’s role in pgEd includes developing curricula, conducting classes, research on the use and impact of personal genetics throughout the world, and fund-raising. She is also working to launch state-wide initiatives in Maine and Massachusetts, with an eye toward expanding this effort to the national level.
Abigail Wark, PhD is a postdoctoral fellow in the Genetics Department at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on the process of evolutionary innovation. Abigail’s current work aims to identify the mechanisms and consequences of natural variation in human breast tissue. In conjunction with the Personal Genome Project and Dr. Cliff Tabin, she is launching a study to investigate the role of human genetic variation in determination of areola morphology. PGP participants are encouraged to join the study.
John Wilbanks is a Senior Fellow in Entrepreneurship with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. He works on standardized informed consent, open data, and open innovation systems. Wilbanks also serves as a Research Fellow at Lybba. He’s worked at Harvard Law School, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the World Wide Web Consortium, the US House of Representatives, and Creative Commons, as well as starting a bioinformatics company. He sits on the Board of Directors for Sage Bionetworks, iCommons, and 1DegreeBio, and the Advisory Board for Boundless Learning. Wilbanks holds a degree in philosophy from Tulane University and also studied modern letters at the University of Paris (La Sorbonne). Photo credit: joi ito. More details coming soon!__

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