Speaker Bios

Raymond N. DuBois, M.D., Ph.D
Provost and Executive Vice President
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston, Texas

Raymond N. DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., currently is serving as Provost and Executive Vice President of The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. His research is focused on developing novel approaches for the early detection, prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer. His laboratory is investigating the molecular links between inflammation and cancer.

Dr. DuBois is a native Texan who obtained his Ph.D. (1981) and M.D. (1985) degrees from The University of Texas Health Science System before completing his training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He also completed postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins as a Howard Hughes Research Associate with Nobel Laureate Daniel Nathans. In 1991 he accepted a position at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology. From 1998 to 2003, he served as the Director of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. On January 1, 2005 he was appointed Director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville. In the summer of 2007 he began serving in his current position as Provost and Executive Vice President of The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. DuBois is President-Elect of the American Association for Cancer Research and past Chair of the Board of Directors for the Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology. He is currently serving on the Scientific Advisory Board for the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, and an internationally known cancer researcher with significant scholarly publications, editorial duties and research grants.

He received the Outstanding Investigator Award for the American Federation of Medical Research in April 2000 and was inducted into the Royal College of Physicians UK (by distinction) in recognition of his research achievements. He was selected to receive the 2002 AACR Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award “in recognition of innovative work leading to significantly improved clinical care in the field of cancer.” In 2004 he was awarded the prestigious Dorothy P. Landon Cancer Prize and the AGA Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2005 he was elected as a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his outstanding contributions toward scientific advancement in the field of cancer research, and in 2006 he was selected to receive the Anthony Dipple Carcinogenesis Award given by Oxford University Press. In May 2007 he was inducted into the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars.

Wayne Rosenkrans
Head of Strategy, Business Architecture & Innovation Merck Research Laboratories, Information Technology Division

Professor Tan Ser Kiat
MBBS.FRCS (Glas), FRCS (Ed), FAMS Group Chief Executive Officer
Singapore Health Services

Professor Tan Ser Kiat is the Group Chief Executive Officer of Singapore Health Services, a public healthcare cluster of three hospitals, five national specialty centres and a network of primary care polyclinics.

A distinguished orthopaedic surgeon by training, Prof Tan continues to practice medicine despite his management responsibilities and is deeply in tune with the healthcare needs of the people as well as global trends and advances of the medical profession.

Prof Tan is a veteran of 37 years of public healthcare and has served in numerous national-level committees that have helped to shape the clinical care delivery framework and healthcare system in Singapore.

For his many contributions to public service, Prof Tan has been awarded the Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 1999, May Day Medal of Commendation in 2004, Leading Chief Executive Officer Award by the Singapore HR Institute (SHRI) in 2005, the Public Service Medal at the National Day Awards 2006 and the Service to Education Awards 2007. www.singhealth.com.sg

Leonard Lerer M.D.
Founder and General Partner Santeum Partners

Leonard Lerer is a founder and General Partner of Santeum Partners, a Swiss-based life science finance advisory boutique. Dr. Lerer is also a founder of implecto, the Life Science Technology Transfer Network. He has held the posts of Affiliate Professor At Large, Senior Research Fellow and Executive Director of the Healthcare Management Initiative at INSEAD. He is a specialist in life science innovation, investment and marketing and has advised many of the major global pharmaceutical companies, sovereign wealth funds, investors, banks, hedge funds, the World Health Organization and the World Bank. Santeum Partners is currently working on investments to build sustainable healthcare infrastructure in the emerging markets, with a particular focus on the UAE. Recent work has included developing an in-house venture fund for one of the top-3 global pharmaceutical companies, advising on product and company acquisitions and acting as in-house consultant and fund manager. His portfolio of projects included supporting companies and management teams in M&A, innovation and a range of transactions. He has founded 2 companies providing specialist analytics and e-business services in life-science and is on the advisory board of a European Electronic Medical Records company. Leonard Lerer is a medical doctor with degrees in pathology and epidemiology and a MBA. He has written almost 100 publications and recently published a book - Digital Strategy in the Pharmaceutical Industry (Macmillan). Leonard Lerer is currently the Managing Editor of the Journal of Medical Marketing (Nature Publishing Group).

Peter Traber M.D.
President, Chief Executive Officer Baylor College of Medicine

Under Dr. Traber’s leadership, Baylor College of Medicine is building an innovative culture, healthcare campus, and model of care from the ground up for the delivery of personalized medicine, using each patient’s unique genetic and molecular profile to better prevent, predict and treat disease. In 2007, Baylor College of Medicine broke ground on a 21st century healthcare facility that will integrate patient care, research and education as never before, while leveraging the College’s renowned strengths in research, science, and genomic medicine.

A recognized thought leader in academic medicine, Dr. Traber serves on the Department of Veterans Affairs Genomic Medicine Program Advisory Committee, the Personalized Medicine Coalition, and the boards of BioHouston, BCM Technologies, the Houston Technology Center, and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. In 2007 he spoke at the Burrill Annual Personalized Medicine Meeting and the National Cancer Institute’s caBIGTM Summit.

Previously he was CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and senior vice president and chief medical officer at GlaxoSmithKline.

He earned his MD at Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1981 and completed a residency and fellowship at Northwestern University Medical School.

Byung-Chul Chang, M.D., Ph.D
Chief Information Officer, Yonsei University Health System Professor, Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Yonsei University College of Medicine
Seoul, Korea

Professor Byung-Chul Chang is an influential medical doctor and administrator who has worked for the betterment of healthcare and designed and implemented future-oriented medical information systems in Korea during his distinguished career. Dr. Chang is a professor of Division of Cardiovascular Surgery in Severance Hospital, Yonsei University Health System (YUHS). In 1992, Dr. Chang worked with Order Communication System (OCS) to develop and implement a Server/Client system in the Yonsei Cardiovascular Center. The system was later expanded to the Severance Hospital, YUHS and upgraded with a Windows NT Server/Client system. In 2004, Professor Chang was nominated as Chief Information Officer of Yonsei University Health System. He is currently managing a new project named Ubiquitous Hospital System for YUHS, another medical information system designed to improve services to patients. It was successfully implemented at the Severance Hospital in November 2005. Later in July 2006, the system was expanded to include the Youngdong Severance Hospital. Currently, Dr. Chang continues his work with information systems as Chief Information Officer of YUHS. Dr. Chang is also working as a 2008-2010 Chairman of Executive Board for the Korean Society of Medical Informatics.

Jim Davis
Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer SAS

As Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Jim Davis provides worldwide marketing direction for SAS solutions and services. He is responsible for managing product direction, professional services, education, advertising and communications.

A respected thought leader, Jim co-authored the book Information Revolution: Using the Information Evolution Model to Grow Your Business.

Since joining SAS in 1994, Jim has pioneered many key initiatives, including global projects that incorporate customer feedback in the development process. Today, he continues to refine the model for continuous collaboration and innovation among engineers, marketers and customers, enabling SAS to meet the global demand for enterprise intelligence.

Erik Wahl
Artist and Consultant The Wahl Group

Erik Wahl is a recognized artist and speaker who inspires professionals to achieve greater levels of performance. His consulting firm, The Wahl Group, challenges organizations to implement breakthrough thinking techniques to accomplish extraordinary results. Erik’s unique understanding of vision traces back to his experience as an artist. Erik earned his bachelors degree in Business Communication before embarking on an eight-year career as a partner in a corporate firm. After first working in the business world and playing with his art, Erik now PLAYS in the business world by WORKING with his art. Erik’s sought after artwork can be seen hanging in executive offices around the world. And as one of the country’s top platform speakers, Erik shares his powerful message with audiences from coast to coast.

David Hodgson
Global Head of Knowledge Exchange and Site Head Roche Palo Alto, California

David Hodgson is the Global Head of Knowledge Exchange and Site Head of Research Informatics at Roche in Palo Alto, California. He has overall responsibility for delivery of information and software solutions that optimize the efficiency of Roche Group Research.

He was formerly Senior Director of Research Informatics and Worldwide Head of Knowledge Management Informatics at Pfizer Global Research and Development.

David is a prior member of the Drug Discovery Today editorial board, and is a consultant to a number of university graduate programs. Additionally he’s been an advisor to a number of major conference programs such as BioIT and Drug Discovery Technology.

He has worked in the field of Computational Sciences for over 15 years and has held senior positions at Incyte Genomics and The Sanger Institute during the pioneering years of the Human Genome Project.

Bjorn Magne Eggen MD, Ph.D.
Director of Medicine and Strategy (CMO) Akershus University Hospital
Oslo, Norway

Bjorn Magne Eggen (M.D., Ph.D.) is Chief Medical Officer of the Akershus University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. He is trained as paediatrician (neonatal intensive care) and in transfusion medicine, has been CMO of the St. Olav’s Hospital (Trondheim University Hospital), Norway, and medical director in the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services.

Kenneth H. Buetow, PhD
Chief, Laboratory of Population Genetics
National Cancer Institute;
Associate Director
Bioinformatics and Information Technology;
Director
NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (NCICBIIT)

Dr. Buetow received a B.A. in biology from Indiana University in 1980 and a Ph.D. in human genetics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985. From 1986 to 1998, Dr. Buetow was at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, where his group generated and electronically distributed the human genetic map. Dr. Buetow serves a dual role for the National Cancer Institute. He is the director of the NCI Center for Bioinformatics (NCICB) and chief of the Laboratory of Population Genetics (LPG). His research interests include the application of genetics and genomics tools to understanding the genetic basis of complex traits. Research focuses on the Genetic Basis of Complex Disease—An Integrated Genomic and Bioinformatic Approach to Understanding the Cancer Phenotype.

The Laboratory of Population Genetics (LPG) conducts human genetic and genomics research, both at the bench and using informatics tool. The major goal of this research program is to apply and extend human genetic analysis methods and resources to better understand the genetics of complex phenotypes, specifically human cancer. The program focuses on both the development of the resources and methods necessary to achieve these goals as well as the application of the methods in characterizing the molecular genetic epidemiology of disease.

Dr. Buetow has spearheaded efforts of the Genetic Annotation Initiative (GAI), an attempt to identify variant forms of the cancer genes identified through the NCI Cancer Genome Anatomy Project (CGAP). His laboratory is particularly interested in genetic variations that make individuals more susceptible to liver, lung, prostate, breast, and ovarian cancer. His group combines computational tools with bench-top laboratory findings to understand how genes and environment interact to increase cancer risk.

As director of the NCICB, Dr. Buetow coordinates and deploys informatics in support of NCI research initiatives. The goal of the NCICB is to maximize interoperability and integration of NCI research and its related information. The center participates in the evaluation and prioritization of the NCI’s bioinformatics research portfolio, conducts or facilitates research that is required to address the NCICB’s mission, serves as the focus for strategic planning to address the NCI’s expanding research initiative’s informatics needs, establishes information technology standards (both within and outside of NCI), and communicates, coordinates, or establishes information exchange standards. Collaborators on this research include Carmen Allegra, Stephen Chanock, Lynette Grouse, Katherine McGlynn, Stephen Sherry, Robert Strausberg, and Shelia Zahm, NIH; Charles Cantor, Hubert Koester, Daniel Little, and Richard MacDonald, Sequenom, Inc.; Paul Engstrom, Warren Kruger, W. Thomas London, and Joseph Testa, Fox Chase Cancer Center; and Fu-Min Shen, First Shanghai Medical University.

Stewart Maxwell
Chief Executive Officer Cerrus International, UK

Stewart Maxwell graduated with a Business degree from Greenwich University, London and has worked within the IT industry for 25 years. In the 1980’s, he specialised in the areas of software development working for several blue chip companies such as Ashton-Tate (UK), Digital Equipment Co Ltd, HM Government (DOE) & Occidental Petroleum. In 1991, Stewart established Cerrus and developed the initial range of software systems for the social care markets including systems for nursing, palliative, homecare, special needs, mental health, community hospital and day care centres. In 2003, Cerrus completed the development of the integrated SATURN system at which point Stewart was nominated for and became a finalist in the 2003 UK Care Awards, Innovator of the Year. As Chief Executive Officer, Stewart heads up the UK healthcare systems company which provides solutions to the social and healthcare markets at corporate and national levels. The latest Saturn 3 system is a multi-language system that is capable of providing health and social care solutions across the world. In 2006, Saturn won the Innovation Award at the Taipei Med iphar Conference and in June 2007, Saturn was nominated as the top European Social Care System and won the European Product Innovation Award for Social Care Systems. Stewart is now one of the leading specialists in health and social care systems and frequently speaks at e-health conferences throughout Europe, Asia and the USA. He has spent 16 years working in the social healthcare IT market and frequently writes articles in health and social care journals on the uses and benefits of IT in the care market.

Atul Butte, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Stanford University School of Medicine Director, Center for Pediatric Bioinformatics Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

Atul Butte, M.D., Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Medicine (Medical Informatics) and Pediatrics, and by courtesy, Computer Science, at Stanford University and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and is a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist. Dr. Butte received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Brown University in 1991, and worked in several stints as a software engineer at Apple Computer (on the System 7 team) and Microsoft Corporation (on the Excel team). He graduated from the Brown University School of Medicine in 1995, during which he worked as a research fellow at NIDDK through the Howard Hughes/NIH Research Scholars Program. He completed his residency in Pediatrics and Fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology in 2001, both at Children’s Hospital, Boston.

Dr. Butte received a Ph.D. in Health Sciences and Technology from the Medical Engineering / Medical Physics Program in the Division of Health Sciences and Technology, at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Butte’s laboratory focuses on solving problems relevant to genomic medicine by developing new methodologies in translational bioinformatics.

Dr. Butte has authored more than 30 publications in bioinformatics, medical informatics, and molecular diabetes, and has delivered more than 70 presentations world-wide on bioinformatics, including 13 at the National Institutes of Health or NIH-sponsored meetings. Dr. Butte is on the Board of Directors of the American Medical Informatics Association. Dr. Butte has co-authored one of the first books on microarray analysis titled “Microarrays for an Integrative Genomics” published by MIT Press. Dr. Butte’s recent awards include the 2007 Genome Technology “Tomorrow’s Principal Investigator” Award, the 2006 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Award, the 2006 PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Grant in Informatics, the 2002 and 2003 American Association for Clinical Chemistry Outstanding Speaker Award, and the 2001 Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society Clinical Scholar Award. Dr. Butte’s research is supported by grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Library of Medicine, the National Institute for General Medical Science, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Cancer Institute, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Foundation, and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Jason Burke
Worldwide Director of Health and Life Sciences, SAS

Jason Burke is the global director of the health and life sciences market segments at SAS. Burke coordinates the development and execution of SAS industry strategy and solutions portfolio across pharmaceutical, healthcare provider, health plan, biotechnology, and regulatory organizations around the world. His organization is accountable for the product lifecycle of SAS Drug Development, the market-leading statistical computing and analysis solution for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Burke regularly consults with industry leaders and executives on emerging business and technology trends, especially those related to bridging the health and life sciences ecosystems. Prior to joining SAS, Burke held leadership positions in companies such as Microsoft, Quintiles Transnational, and Glaxo Wellcome. He led the development of Microsoft’s “Digital Pharma” industry technology strategy and corresponding architecture, and has served as a technology leader in several industry think tank and strategic development initiatives. As a regular speaker and author, his areas of interest and experience include strategic planning, technology research, product development, and industry and enterprise architecture. Burke is a scientist by training, and holds a Master of Arts in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Jim Forbes
Chief Technology Officer
Shared Health Information Management Services Partnership (SIMS), Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Jim is the Chief Technology Officer for the Shared Health Information Management Services Partnership (SIMS)—an information management and technology group that is shared between fourteen health care organizations in the greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. SIMS works within the partnership and province, helping to transform healthcare service delivery by implementing projects that support patient centered care throughout the continuum of care.

With over twenty years of healthcare and IT experience Jim has led several innovative—some award winning— projects such as Patient Results Online (PRO), Electronic Whiteboard and ER Notification. A strong advocate for interoperability and standards, Jim served as a member of the HL7 Canada Board of Directors from 2002 - 2004. He greatly enjoys collaborating via working groups and sharing his knowledge and expertise with others in the healthcare industry.

Slaven Rakic
Manager, Systems Engineering and Networking Shared Health Information Management Services Partnership (SIMS), Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Slaven is the Manager of Systems Engineering and Networking for the Shared Health Information Management Services Partnership (SIMS)—an information management and technology group that is shared between fourteen health care organizations in the greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. SIMS works within the partnership and province, helping to transform healthcare service delivery by implementing projects that support patient centered care throughout the continuum of care.

With over fifteen years of healthcare, airline and IT experience Slaven has led many initiatives aimed at transforming healthcare delivery though the integration of disparate systems between organizations. He has successfully implemented a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) infrastructure within the SIMS partnership for such applications as Patient Results Online (PRO), eReferral, Care Coordination Portal. Slaven continues to share and expand his knowledge with other members of the healthcare community.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey
Biomedical Gerontologist
Chief Science Officer, Methuselah Foundation Editor-in-Chief “Rejuvenation Research”

Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist based in Cambridge, UK, and is the Chairman and Chief Science Officer of the Methuselah Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit charity dedicated to combating the aging process. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the high-impact journal "Rejuvenation Research", the world’s only peer-reviewed journal focused on combating aging. His research interests encompass the etiology of all the accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular side-effects of metabolism ("damage") that constitute mammalian aging and the design of interventions to repair and/or obviate that damage. He has developed a possibly comprehensive plan for such repair, termed Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), which breaks the aging problem down into seven major classes of damage and identifies detailed approaches to addressing each one. A key aspect of SENS is that it can potentially extend healthy lifespan without limit, even though these repair processes will never be perfect, as the repair only needs to approach perfection rapidly enough to keep the overall level of damage below pathogenic levels. de Grey has termed this required rate of improvement of repair therapies “longevity escape velocity”.

Malcolm Thatcher
Chief Information Officer
Mater Health Services

Malcolm Thatcher commenced his career in information technology in 1982 as an officer of the Queensland Government. Mr Thatcher left the public sector in 1988 to commence his consulting career. As Vice-President of a Sydney based software company, Mr. Thatcher was responsible for establishing the company’s US operations based out of Long Beach, California. In 1992, Mr. Thatcher established his own successful software and services company in Brisbane, which delivered IT services, predominately to Government, throughout Australia and New Zealand, The firm’s software products were sold throughout Australia, New Zealand, the United States, United Kingdom and South America. Mr Thatcher has delivered numerous papers on information technology in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom and has served on several industry committees advising on issues of information technology.

In 2004, Mr Thatcher joined Mater Health Services (MHS) as their Chief Information Officer, with executive portfolio responsibility for the strategic stewardship of the Mater’s information assets. With over 6,000 staff, MHS operates 7 hospitals, providing over 1000 beds and delivering over 500,000 occasions of inpatient and outpatient services each year.

Mr Thatcher is also passionate about education and is a past member of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) governing board which included performing the role of acting Chancellor of QUT on a number of occasions.

Mr. Thatcher holds an honours degree in computer science from The University of Queensland, and a Master’s Degree in computer science from QUT. In 1991 Mr Thatcher was the inaugural recipient of QUT’s Outstanding Alumni Award for the Faculty of Information Technology.

John Varaklis
Head of Operations and Innovation for Translational Medicine
Early Development
Novartis Pharma AG
Switzerland

John Varaklis is Head of Operations and Innovation for Translational Medicine which is a group within the Early Development area in Novartis.  He has 20 years of international clinical experience having worked extensively in both the early and late phases of development both in US and EU. He is a core member of the Novartis Development-wide DELPhI team which is looking at continuous improvements to the development process within Novartis.  In the Translational Medicine area, he is currently involved in the design and implementation of trials using direct from and to patient data technology and data flow.

He studied biochemistry at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

Internet Address: john.varaklis@novartis.com

Chris Longhurst, MD, MS, FAAP
Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Stanford School of Medicine
Physician Lead, Clinical Informatics, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

Chris Longhurst is a board-certified pediatric hospitalist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and a clinical assistant professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Longhurst also holds an administrative appointment as the medical director for clinical informatics, which allows him to focus on the use of CPOE-based clinical decision support to enhance patient safety and quality of care.

Charis Eng, MD, PhD, FACP
Sondra J. and Stephen P. Hardis Chair in Cancer Genomic Medicine
Chairman and Director, Cleveland Clinic Genomic Medicine Institute
Professor and Vice Chairman, Department of Genetics Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Dr. Charis Eng is the Chairman and founding Director of the Genomic Medicine Institute of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, founding Director and attending clinical cancer geneticist of the institute’s clinical component, the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare, and Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Genetics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. She holds a joint appointment as Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and is a full member of Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Center and of the CASE Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Eng was recently honored with the Sondra J. and Stephen P. Hardis Endowed Chair in Cancer Genomic Medicine. She continues to hold an honorary appointment at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Eng’s research interests may be broadly characterized as clinical cancer genetics translational research. Her work on RET testing in multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 and the characterization of the widening clinical spectra of PTEN gene mutations have been acknowledged as the paradigm for the practice of clinical cancer genetics.

Dr. Eng grew up in Singapore and Bristol, UK and entered the University of Chicago at the age of 16. After completing an MD and PhD at its Pritzker School of Medicine, she specialized in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston and trained in medical oncology at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She was formally trained in clinical cancer genetics at the University of Cambridge and the Royal Marsden NHS Trust, UK, and in laboratory-based human cancer genetics by Bruce Ponder, MB, PhD. At the end of 1995, Dr. Eng returned to the Farber as Assistant Professor of Medicine, and in January, 1999 was recruited by The Ohio State University as Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Clinical Cancer Genetics Program. In 2001, she was honored with the conferment of the Davis Professorship and appointed Co-Director of the Division of Human Genetics in the Department of Internal Medicine. In 2002, she was promoted to Professor and Division Director, and was conferred the Klotz Endowed Chair. She moved to the Cleveland Clinic in Sept, 2005. Dr. Eng has published over 290 peer reviewed original papers in such journals as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, Nature Genetics, Nature, Cell and Molecular Cell. She has received numerous awards and honors including election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, to the Association of American Physicians and as Fellow of AAAS, the Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award and named a Local Legend from Ohio bestowed

John Glaser, Ph.D.
Vice President and Chief Information Officer Partners HealthCare System

John Glaser, PhD, is Vice-President and Chief Information Officer, Partners HealthCare System, Inc. Previously, he was Vice-President, Information Systems at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Prior to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr. Glaser managed the Healthcare Information Systems consulting practice at Arthur D. Little.

Dr. Glaser was the founding Chairman of College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and is past President of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). He is past-President of the eHealth Initiative and has been a member of the Board of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Dr. Glaser is the Senior Advisor for National HIT Adoption for CHIME. He is a Senior Advisor to the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.

He is a fellow of HIMSS, CHIME and the American College of Medical Informatics. He has been awarded the John Gall award for healthcare Chief Information Officer of the year. CHIME has established a scholarship in Dr. Glaser’s name. He was elected to Chief Information Officer Magazine’s Chief Information Officer Hall of Fame. Partners HealthCare has received several industry awards for its effective and innovative use of information technology.

Dr. Glaser has published over one hundred articles and four books on the strategic application of information technology in healthcare.

He holds a Ph.D. in Healthcare Information Systems from the University of Minnesota.

Eric Newmark
Research Manager, Health Industry Insights IDC

Eric Newmark is a Research Manager for IDC’s Health Industry Insights, where he provides research-based advisory and consulting services, as well as market analysis on key topics within the health and life science industry. Newmark’s research expertise includes channel management, supply chain evolution, e-pedigree, RFID and identifying emerging technologies and market trends. Prior to joining IDC, Eric served as Senior Research Analyst at AMR Research where he focused on Supply Chain, CRM, Price Management, and Web Self-Service. Throughout his career, Eric has held positions in application development, technical project management, and operations management at Siebel Systems Inc., Onlink Technologies and Easyware Software.

Newmark is a widely recognized thought leader, quoted by such media outlets as Investor’s Business Daily, Chief Information Officer Insight, Supply & Demand Chain Executive, RFID Journal, and Bio-IT World magazine. Newmark holds a BS in MIS and Finance from Babson College, as well as an MBA from the Boston University School of Management, with a certification in Strategic Business Analysis.

Richard Ingraham
Global Healthcare Strategy, SAS

Richard Ingraham brings a unique understanding of the shared business and delivery issues within the healthcare provider, payer and IT analytic industries, along with conflicting incentive structures. Ingraham has served in executive capacities across both private and public entities within each of these three key driver industries of healthcare improvement. His insight into the opportunities for improved collaboration and coordination across the healthcare spectrum serves as a foundation for SAS’s leadership within the Health & Life Sciences arena.

Ingraham represents SAS at key industry gatherings, including the Disease Management Association of America (DMAA), America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), and National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA). In 2005, he served on the National Anti-Fraud Project Executive Committee for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), administered through the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). In 2007 he was appointed to the ONC’s Anti-Fraud Model Requirements Executive Team to develop an Anti-fraud Model for the subsequent ONC submission to the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP).

After managing various health delivery programs within the Florida Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services, Ingraham became Business Director for the Leon County Public Health Department in Tallahassee, Florida in 1984. He moved on to manage an investigative unit with the Bureau of Allied Lines, Florida Department of Insurance in 1986.

Over the next eleven years, as Director of Case Management and VP Operations, Controller, and Chief Financial Officer for Equicor (HCA & Equitable joint venture), CIGNA and the Health Services Group, respectively, Ingraham directed numerous managed care program design and development initiatives as well as strategic acquisition projects. His knowledge of claims patterns and analysis for fraud detection was formed both via his DOI and Equicor posts. He presents expertise in risk stratification for disease and medical case management, medical utilization improvements, provider performance and quality benchmarking, process engineering, and internal control projects within the health insurance arena. At each stage of his career, Ingraham has been engaged in efforts to improve the method of information sharing and collaboration across the healthcare payer & provider sectors.

Since joining SAS in 1998, Ingraham has worked with senior level management teams in the health care sector to improve strategic decision making processes, knowledge management and aligning information technology capacities with business. In 2002, Ingraham dedicated his efforts to providing industry knowledge for the Health & Life Sciences Division focusing on the health payer sector. He now serves as the global marketing manager for the health benefit plan industry.

Charged with setting the vision and aligning capacity for SAS’s contribution within healthcare, he has identified improving analytics for the shift to electronic medical records, the disease management process, detection and prevention of fraudulent claims, provider performance reporting and profiling, consumer driven health plan analytics and customer profitability intelligence as key SAS focus areas for this sector. Ingraham most recently was invited to present at HP’s 2005 Global Healthcare Summit on “Collaboration to Enhance P4P”, HFMA’s Spring Summit 2006 addressing “Quality Metric Collaboration – How Payers and Providers can Jointly Contribute to CDHP Portals,” the NHCAA 2005-2007 Training Institutes, the 4th Annual SOA/DMAA Predictive Modeling Seminar in April 2007 and the 2007 World Health Care Congress “Leveraging the Work of RHIOs and SHIEs into Improved Outcomes & Delivery.” Ingraham also directs a public web cast series, “Predictive Analytics for Health Care” for SAS.

Rebecca L. Little
Senior Vice President, HIE Market Development Medicity

Rebecca Little is responsible for leading Medicity’s efforts in the RHIO/HIE market segment including strategy, marketing, business alliances and partnerships. Prior to her current role, Ms. Little held a variety of leadership positions within Park City Solutions which was acquired by Medicity in January 2006.

Prior to joining Park City Solutions Ms. Little was employed by a leading healthcare IT consulting and outsourcing firm. Ms. Little has served in various roles in the healthcare information technology field over nearly 20 years; experience includes interoperability solutions, data warehousing, enterprise-wide integrated clinical and financial systems, and ancillary applications in laboratory, radiology, and emergency department.

Ms. Little participates on the Northern Virginia RHIO Infrastructure Advisory Board, the NHIN Trial Implementation Leadership and Communication Workgroup, is a HIMSS member and participated on the eHealth Initiative’s Katrina states advisory panel.

Speaking engagements include: North Eastern Florida RHIO Board of Directors meeting, 4th Annual HIT Conference - Washington DC, Hewlett-Packard’s Annual Healthcare and Life Science conference, California Hospital Association’s Annual Board Retreat, and the Pennsylvania eHealth Initiative’s Board of Directors Meeting.

Gina Perez
President
Advances in Management, Inc.

Gina Perez is president of Advances in Management, Inc., a management consulting firm specializing in project development and management, marketing and strategic planning. Ms. Perez has nearly two decades of project management experience and has worked in both the public and private sectors in business and healthcare settings.

Since 2004, Advances in Management has been engaged by the Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN) to provide project direction for the Health Information Exchange Project—a statewide effort to create an interoperable health care system in Delaware. In this role, Ms. Perez provides strategic direction and day-to-day executive management for the DHIN reporting to the Board of Directors. In the spring of 2007, the Delaware Health Information Network went live and became the first statewide health information exchange in the nation.

In 2000, Ms. Perez joined Electronic Data Systems, Corporation as the Services Delivery Manager for the Delaware Health Services Account overseeing the medical claims processing, provider relations, pharmacy services and financial units of the Delaware Medicaid and Medical Assistance programs. She was promoted to project director for the Health Benefits Manager Account and the Delaware Prescription Assistance Program in 2001, where she expanded services to include a primary care case management member services department and central care coordination for the Community Healthcare Access Program. Ms. Perez also led the implementation of a Medicaid case management system.

Prior to that, Ms. Perez held several positions within the State of Delaware’s Division of Public Health including Public Information Officer and director of the Health Systems Development Branch.

Gina Perez has a Masters Degree in Public Administration and holds certifications in Healthcare Administration and Health Leadership. She also earned a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration, specializing in Marketing.

Tom Herzog
Vice President, DeviceWorks Cerner Corporation

Thomas P. Herzog, Vice President, DeviceWorks joined Cerner in 1997. In his current role, Tom is responsible for leading the development of solutions in the area of medical device management and interoperability. He works with clients and partners to provide comprehensive technology solutions that support the transformation of healthcare. His focus is on person centric workflow improvements using technology as an enabler in driving patient safety, automation and efficiencies.

Prior to joining Cerner he managed and led teams to automate systems; integrating record, financial and information systems. Additional experience includes providing auto identification and data capture solutions to various industries. He is recognized for his strategies to deliver results through vision, building strong teams and working to create win-win approaches.

Herzog earned a Bachelor of Arts in Business from Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe, KS. He enjoys studying history and cultures having lived in Japan for five years. In addition, Tom has a strong interest in leadership and management topics and often speaks to groups on these subjects.

Philippe Berna
Chief Executive Officer and founder of Kayentis France

Philippe Berna is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Kayentis. After working for over 10 years in major industrial groups (Alcatel, Aerospatiale and Thales), he founded his first company, Qualience, to develop embedded software for the aeronautical industry. In 1999 he sold Qualience to the Silicomp group, at the same time joining the group and quickly rising to become its Managing Director for France.

He went on to found Kayentis in 2003. Philippe Berna is also a member and administrator of the Richelieu Committee, a French association of high-tech SMBs.

Guillaume Juge
Managing Director Kayentis France

Guillaume Juge, Managing Director at Kayentis, graduated from a French business school and the executive MBA of HEC group, Guillaume Juge spent over 10 years in the financial division of the Compass group. In 2003 he was appointed Managing Director of one of its subsidiaries, Medirest/Scolarest (with revenue of € 150 million and 2500 staff). He joined Kayentis as Managing Director during the first financing round in January 2006, and is now a shareholder of the company.

Manuel Lowenhaupt, M.D.
President, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board Radianse, Inc.

Dr. Lowenhaupt is the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Radianse, Inc. He is internationally noted for his work in clinical informatics, care management and clinical operations. Prior to this position, he was an Executive Partner and Practice Leader for Clinical Transformation at Accenture. In 17 years of consulting, he has worked with greater than one hundred twenty healthcare organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Far East. Prior to his consulting career, Dr. Lowenhaupt practiced medicine and led a multi-specialty group in Boston for 10 years, co-founded Boston Medical Systems, and worked as an investigator for the NIH. Dr. Lowenhaupt received his undergraduate degree from M.I.T. (Phi Beta Kappa) and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Jason Tepfenhardt
Director of Operations Life Sciences Practice, Genilogix

Jason R. Tepfenhardt is Director of Operations for Genilogix’s Life Sciences Practice and has over 12 years of pharmaceutical industry experience including positions as an Analytical Chemist at McNeil Consumer Healthcare, IT Engineer at Wyeth, Validation and Compliance Specialist at CimQuest, and Quality Systems Manager and Director of Quality Management at ReSearch Pharmaceutical Services. At Genilogix, Jason is responsible for developing strategic solutions and providing services that enable Life Sciences companies to improve their software quality assurance processes through the implementation of test automation. Jason has been successful in applying technology to deliver innovative solutions that derive real value from the computer systems validation life cycle.

Jason is a member of the GAMP Risk Management SIG. He holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from William Paterson University and a Master of Business Administration in Technology Management from Drexel University.

Alexander Ihls
Head of Global Standards Office
Open eHealth Foundation
InterComponentWare AG (ICW), Waldorf, Germany

Alexander Ihls is head of the Global Standards Office from InterComponentWare AG (ICW). With his team he is responsible for the coordination of all activities in Standard Developing Organizations (SDOs) and the integration of international standards in the development of the ICW PHR (LifeSensor®) and the Networking solutions, for hospitals and GPs. Prior to ICW, Ihls had a leading position at iSOFT Germany and the MEDOS AG. In addition to these positions he was CIO of a public hospital in Leipzig. Ihls was also the founding Co-Chair of IHE Germany and is engaged in the HL7 community as well as in the German society of informatics.

Prof. Dr. h.c. Fried Oelschlegel
Professor, Director for Administration CHARITE Berlin

Professor Fried Oelschlegel, German, has more than 30 years professional experience in Hospital Management; 12 years Director for Administration at the CHARITE Berlin, the biggest University Hospital in Europe, later in similar positions as Chief Executive Officer and Board Member at the HURRLE Kliniken AG, RHOEN KLINIKEN AG, FRESENIUS- ProServe AG in Germany before his engagement in Middle East in 2001. He was the VP of Saudi German Hospitals Group before joining EMAAR Healthcare. He is co-founder of the Consulting Company GERMED-Ltd (UK, Germany, Dubai) and CFO of one of the biggest hospitals in Saudi Arabia at present. Fried is a holder of doctor degrees in Economy and Medicine (of honor), has published 82 papers and book chapters and is holder of a professorship in Hospital Management; he is a further a Member of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and in similar International Healthcare Organizations.

Jim Athanasiou
Intel

Jim Athanasiou has over 7 years of experience in finance working in various divisions at Intel. In the beginning of his career, Jim spent 3 years understanding and evaluating the ROI (Return on Investment) of Intel’s IT investments. Later Jim moved to the Channel Platform Group as the product strategic finance analyst, where he partnered with marketing and engineering to evaluate roadmap product decisions and later managed a $6 Billion PNL (Profit and Loss) assisting the General Manager of the group on key financial and business decisions. Most recently Jim has been the externally facing financial strategic specialist in Intel’s Digital Health Group, working close with the Director of Healthcare IT to architect Intel’s Healthcare IT Value Models: (www.intel.com/healthcare) and is responsible for driving the value models worldwide via proof of concepts, executive health exchange events and workshops. Mr. Athanasiou holds a degree of bachelor science in managerial economics from the University of California at Davis.

Richard Bertuzzi
Iron Mountain

Richard Bertuzzi has over twenty-five years experience in the technology industry with a specialty in information storage and business development.

Lisa Dali
Hewlett-Packard Company

Lisa Dali is the worldwide Product Marketing Manager for Verticals, Alliances & Medical Imaging at Hewlett- Packard.

Adrienne Tannenbaum
Senior Principal, Business Inteligence Services Group Hewlett-Packard Company

Adrienne Tannenbaum is a Sr. Principal in HP’s Business Intelligence services group. She has extensive experience in the Information Integration world, focusing substantially on the issues within Health and Life Sciences. She is a recognized expert in the metadata specialty and the author of two well-received books (Metadata Solutions – Using Meta models, Repositories, XML, and Enterprise Portals to Generate Information on Demand – Addison-Wesley, 2002; Implementing a Corporate Repository – The Models Meet Reality – Wiley, 1994).

Adrienne Tannenbaum is the founder of Database Design Solutions, Inc. and is a member of the Data Transition Group (www.data-trans.com).

Jorg Focke
Spokesman, Head of Department Innovation-Center Asklepios Future Hospital, Hamburg

Jorg Focke, who studied law, started his professional career as an IT-consultant within the field of pharmacy. From 1990 until 1994, he worked for the German Employee Academy as a secretary for education and was primarily responsible for the IT coordination for the federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. After three years in the State Office for Information Technology in Hamburg, he now operates for the Asklepios Clinics since 1998. During his period as an IT-architect, he gained experience concerning processing, editing and availability of data in the clinical everyday life. Now he uses this know-how in his position as Speaker of the Asklepios Future Hospital.

Jason Hansen
Business Process Consultant, Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard Company

Jason Hansen is currently a Process Consultant for HP focusing on Imaging and Printing solutions for Healthcare in North America. He has 10 years of experience in the healthcare industry and brings a unique blend of both technical and sales consulting experience. Over the past 4 years Jason has helped design and developed integrated document print and capture solutions for some of the top healthcare providers in the US. His solutions experience includes, electronic forms processes, distributed digital capture of documents for Electronic Medical Records Systems and Pharmacy Order Management systems. Jason also has experience working on integrating print and capture solutions with the Hospital Information Solution providers including Cerner, GE and McKesson. Jason has an extensive background in software development and support, holds a bachelors degree in computer science from University of Missouri - Rolla, and is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.

Hakon Guebjaisson, Ph.D.
Vice President, deCODE Informatics

Hakon Guebjartsson, Ph.D. serves as Vice President for Informatics at deCODE Informatics. Dr. Gudbjartsson joined the Department of Informatics in 1996. He received his B.Sc. in electrical engineering in 1990 from the University of Iceland and his M.Sc. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT in 1992. In 1996, he received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and performed post-doctoral research concerning magnetic resonance imaging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston until joining deCODE.

JianYang
IT Manager
Lily Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery

Yang serves as an IT manager at Lilly Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery. Yang is in charge of the in-house software/application development team at the system biology division. The main task of the team is to deliver IT solutions for oncology wet lab scientists and bioinformatists across Lilly research sites. Yang is particularly interested in biomedical and medical data integration and the contribution of information technology to facilitating drug discovery processes. Prior to joining Lilly at 2006, Yang worked at University of North Carolina, School of Public Health on medical informatics projects. Yang has a medical degree and a graduate degree in information science.

Geraldine Wade MD, MS
Director of Medical Informatics, Applied Clinical Informatics, Health & Life Sciences, Information Management, HP Services – Americas Hewlett-Packard Company

Dr. Wade provides leadership and subject matter expertise in Informatics across several disciplines within the H&LS Information Management Practice through consulting and solution development. She focuses on the data transformation needs of organizations to enable data sharing within an enterprise, across their industry and with other industries through the migration of legacy data and the adoption of data standards. Her 25-year career in healthcare spans clinical medicine, medical informatics, government service and international consulting. She maintains a medical license in the State of Georgia and resides in the Atlanta area. She is an invited international speaker on data standards, medical vocabularies and interoperability requirements.

Informatics Experience

Computer Sciences Corporation – Senior Industry Expert
- Focus: solution development for the Life Sciences, data governance, data source evaluation for clinical research and new business models

Health Language – Director of Medical Informatics
- Focus: international consulting for applications using clinical terminologies, vocabularies and data standards; content modeling; database design

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – Senior Medical Informaticist
- Focus: data specifications for applications (e.g. the West Nile Virus); search technology, log file analysis of consumer queries; public health thesaurus

Department of Health and Human Services – Senior Policy Analyst
- Focus: content, development and implementation of website for the National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII) initiative in OASPE/HHS

Education

• MD, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA
• MS, Medical Informatics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT
• BA, Biological Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE

Certifications and Memberships

• Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics
• AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association)
• ACP (American College of Physicians)
• Participant in HL7, CDISC terminology, SNOMED CT content modeling,

Iain MacNeil
Business Development Manager, PT&A World Wide Health and Life Science, Hewlett-Packard Company

A graduate from the University of Waterloo in Canada, Iain MacNeil has been working in New York City delivering large complex solutions to Financial Services and Life Sciences accounts for over 10 years.

Since an acquisition by HP in 2003, Iain has dedicated his efforts to helping our pharmaceutical customers gain increased value by tapping into HP’s larger portfolio of products, services, and technologies. Last year Iain took the reigns on our Product Tracking & Authentication (PT&A) Solution Portfolio which was built on HP’s innovation in print technologies and a long history of success in Global Supply Chain and Enterprise ERP integration.

Iain is currently focused on helping pharmaceutical manufacturers understand and advance their programs around the impending ePedigree and Serialization compliance laws. He works with HP counterparts in Europe and Asia, and has developed partnerships with the leading providers in the space.

Taha Kass-Hout, MD, MS
Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Emory University, Director, Health Informatics, Google/InSTEDD

Dr. Kass-Hout has over 12 years of experience in health, public health, and informatics, and has led research and development initiatives, critical assessment of new and emerging health IT technologies, and development of new capabilities and solutions in health and public health for customers in federal, state, commercial, and international health organizations. In 2005, Dr. Kass-Hout served as the Senior Medical Advisor to the United States’ Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) Architecture Prototype built by Northrop Grumman Corporation. During the response to the 2003 SARS outbreak, Dr. Kass-Hout led the US informatics and information technology task at the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dr. Kass-Hout holds memberships in professional (national, and international) societies, has published in several peer-reviewed journals and presented at numerous national and international forums. Dr. Kass-Hout holds one patent pending (methodology and platform for disease surveillance from unstructured and structured sources of information and linking early detection to effective and timely response: the Global Disease Surveillance Platform (or GDSPTM); Kass-Hout and Mirabito, 2006). Dr. Kass-Hout holds a Doctor of Medicine and Masters of Science (biostatistics) degrees with clinical practice training at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital and University of Texas Medical Center at Houston.

John O’Dea
Chief Executive Officer Crospon Medical Devices

With 18 years experience in the medical device industry, he has overseen the successful launch of seven electronic medical device products in the past thirteen years. He co founded Caradyne, an Irish respiratory medical device company in 1998, which was selling products in 30 countries prior to its acquisition by Respironics Inc. in 2004. Prior to founding Crospon, he served as General Manager of Respironics Ireland. In the past 20 years he has held R&D management positions in Nellcor Puritan Bennet and engineering positions in Digital Equipment Inc. and Dataproducts Inc. . He is a named author on six U.S. patents. He is currently Chairman of the R&D Working Group of the Irish Medical Device Association. He has been twice a finalist in the Irish Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition. He holds Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Electronics Engineering all from University College Dublin.

Krishna Sankhavaram
Director, Research Information Systems & Technology Development, UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston, Texas

Krishna Sankhavaram has over 15 years of experience in building software solutions, delivering IT services to support Basic and Translational research in cancer research environments. He has broad background in many technologies with Solution architecture skills blended with extensive experience in project management. After completing graduate school, he joined St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, as a Scientific programmer in a Molecular biology Lab. He spent more than a decade there, where he helped build the IT infrastructure for research which includes various software systems, high performance computing, visualization etc and eventually became the Assistant Director for Research Computing at the Hartwell center for Bioinformatics and Biotechnology. After a brief time at the Moffitt Cancer Center, he joined M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 2005, to start as the Director of a new department, Research Information systems and Technology Development. His department supports MDACC research community. His team has spearheaded the design and deployment of their very successful and heavily used high performance computing cluster which is the largest of it kind in the World dedicated exclusively to cancer research. His team is currently involved in various Software projects in Basic Sciences and Translational Sciences areas.

Dave Medina
Director, Pharmaceutical and Life Science Markets, Worldwide Health and Life Sciences,
Technology Solutions Group, Hewlett-Packard Company

As director, David Medina leads a diverse organization committed to providing advanced technologies and services to the pharmaceutical and life science research segments. Medina’s specific functions include thought leadership, market strategy, business planning and solutions development.

HP is dedicated to helping companies leverage information and data flow across the healthcare value chain, allowing the biopharmaceutical industry to leverage basic life science research in the development and distribution of new therapeutic agents. Medina has led the development of HP’s annual Health & Life Sciences Symposium, a unique thought leadership forum focused on issues surrounding IT adoption for senior healthcare and life science leaders across the globe. He has also been instrumental for developing unique HP solutions that increase the efficiency of life science research.

Prior to joining HP, Medina was Director of Business Development and Marketing for Quintiles Consulting, working with the pharmaceutical and medical device industry to bring products to market. His experience includes diagnostics, disease management and medical management software in the US healthcare payer and provider marketplaces. He also has a solid background in GLP, GCP and GMP compliance in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Prior to Quintiles, Medina held marketing and sales management positions with Medical Manager, Dianon Systems and Confer Software.

Based in Houston, Texas, Medina received a bachelor of science degree from the United States Coast Guard Academy and a master’s degree in business administration (Finance) from Tulane University. Medina also held a Regulatory Affairs Certification (RAC) in FDA regulatory affairs from the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS).

Ioannis Xenarios, Ph.D
Director, Vital-IT Group
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland

Ioannis Xenarios is the Director of Vital-IT, a high performance-computing center dedicated to life science research at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He received a Ph.D in immunology at the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research and the Institute of Biochemistry. He worked on the development of the Database of Interacting Proteins (DIP) under the supervision of Professor David Eisenberg at the University of California, Los Angeles. He then became the head of Translational Bioinformatics at Serono (now Merck Serono) where his group developed computational methodologies in the area of proteomics,

Abbott Schindler
Senior Technologist, Hewlett-Packard Company

Abbott Schindler has been involved with advanced storage technologies for nearly three decades. In his current role, he is involved with creating and driving HP StorageWorks strategies, focusing on Storage 3.0. He is also involved in several storage management projects.

Abbott has been with HP, Compaq and Digital Equipment Corporation since 1984. After contributing toward advanced magnetic recording head and media development, he became involved with state-of-the-art disk drive projects. His broad experience in disk drive engineering, quality assurance, and technical marketing give him interesting and useful perspectives on the relationships between technology and practical solutions to a variety of challenges. Abbott has been involved with RAID, Storage Area Networks, storage virtualization, and other key technologies since they began. He has been an important contributor and evangelist to key storage strategies at DEC, Compaq and HP.

After completing a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry at California State University, Northridge (C.S.U.N.), Abbott went to work as a research biochemist. Several years later, he returned to C.S.U.N., where he earned an M.B.A. Since then, he has continued his education with coursework in vacuum science, statistical quality control, design of experiments and other areas.

Prior to joining DEC, Abbott was involved in advanced recording head and media development and manufacturing at Burroughs Corp., where he earned a patent. Later, at Apple Computer, he worked on some of the earliest 5.25" disk drives and advanced floppy disk drives. He has also contributed to Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) tutorials. His unusual background includes 11-1/2 years of research as a medical biochemist studying aging, cancer, and other diseases.