Frontiers of Personalized Medicine: Speaker's Bio

Frontiers of Personalized Medicine: A Fresh Look Ahead
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Speakers' Bios

William G. Nelson, M.D., Ph.D - Keynote Speaker
Professor and Director, The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins

Dr. Nelson is a recognized leader in translational research for cancer. Along with fellow Johns Hopkins colleagues, he discovered the most common genome alteration in prostate cancer. The discovery led to new diagnostic tests for the disease and has fueled interest in new drug discovery and other treatment options, now ongoing at Johns Hopkins.

He was one of three co-chairs of the National Cancer Institute’s Translational Research Working Group, which worked to reengineer translational cancer science across the nation, and has been a member of the scientific advisory boards of several companies focused on the development of new technologies and treatments for human cancer, a member of the American Association of Cancer Research’s Board of Directors, President of the National Coalition for Cancer Research, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

At the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. Nelson has served as the Associate Director for Translational Research and the Co-Director of the Prostate Cancer Program, and acts in a leadership role for the National Cancer Institute-funded Howard University Cancer Center-Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center Partnership Program, dedicated to building cancer research capabilities at Howard and to enhancing minority subject recruitment to cancer-research programs at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Nelson received a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Yale University in 1980. In 1987, Dr. Nelson completed his medical degree and Ph.D. training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and completed an Internal Medicine residency training and Medical Oncology fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Yves Dubaquie, Ph.D
Director, Business Development & Licensing, Novartis Molecular Diagnostics

Dr. Yves Dubaquie joined Novartis Molecular Diagnostics (MDx) in Cambridge, MA, in August 2009. In his current role of Director, Business Development & Licensing, he is engaged in the full spectrum of MDx partnering activities including in-licensing, out-licensing and M&A projects. Prior to joining Novartis MDx, Dr. Dubaquie held the position of Director, Business Development at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, where he lead the ex-US out-licensing efforts of a gastro-intestinal therapeutic. Before joining Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, he spent seven years at Bristol-Myers Squibb in various therapeutic research, clinical development, and business development roles. Dr. Dubaquie holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland, and subsequently completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at Genentech, Inc.

Gabriela Lavezzari, Ph.D, MBA
Director, Extramural Development, Medco

Gabriela Lavezzari is the Director in Extramural R&D at Medco Research Institute LLC, where she works towards developing a broad range of personalized medicine products. Prior to joining Medco, Dr. Lavezzari was the Laboratory Director for Theranostics Health, a biotech company in Rockville MD, focused on the discovery of new cancer theranostics biomarkers. There she managed the laboratory services and lead the R&D effort for biomarker discovery. Prior to this, Dr. Lavezzari was a Senior Laboratory Specialist with the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) at Social & Scientific Systems. There she facilitated technical management & operations of ACTG lab structure domestically and internationally.

Dr. Lavezzari received her PhD in Biology at the University of Milano, Italy followed by her postdoctoral work at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). She also received her MBA at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT).

Brandon Higgs, Ph.D
Senior Scientist, Translational Sciences, MedImmune

Dr. Brandon Higgs has over 12 years combined experience in pharmacogenomics, molecular diagnostics, and Biodefense.  He started in diagnostics at SRA Life Sciences, then moved to Gene Logic where he worked in toxicogenomics, developing genomics models to predict human toxicity.  This work developed into a consortium with participants from health and safety departments within many of the top US, European, and Japanese pharma companies.  From here, Dr. Higgs moved to a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) for the DoD, MITRE Corporation, with sponsored projects aimed at developing sequence analysis infrastructure for the CDC and modeling and simulation of biological systems for both Biothreat identification and syndromic surveillance.  Currently he leads the computational biology thrust at MedImmune conducting biomarker development and personalized healthcare strategies within translational sciences, in addition to consulting for various clients in both the public and private sector in the areas of bioinformatics and biostatistics.

 He has successfully developed molecular diagnostics for the early detection of coronary artery disease and Alzheimer’s disease. He has also presented both pharmacodynamic and diagnostic strategies in support of companion diagnostics for drugs in lupus and myositis to both the FDA and EMA.  Dr. Higgs is adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University, where he developed and teaches two courses and George Mason University, where he occasionally teaches one course and mentors Masters-level students.

He received his B.S. in biochemistry from Indiana University , his M.S. in bioinformatics from the Johns Hopkins University , and his Ph.D. in computational biology and bioinformatics from the School of Computational Sciences at George Mason University

Jianrong Long, Ph.D
Director, Research & Product Development, Cylex

Dr. Jianrong Lou is the Director of Research & Product Development at Cylex, Inc and has more than 15 years of experience in biomarker research and in vitro diagnostic industry. Serving in various technical leadership and management positions, Dr. Lou focused on development of molecular diagnostics products and contributed to the launch of several FDA-approvedin vitro diagnostic assays and instrument platforms. His accomplishments include the establishment of an independent biomarker research program for cancer prevention and companion diagnostics using genomics and proteomics technologies.

Dr. Lou received his doctorate from the University of Kentucky and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology and oncology from Johns Hopkins University.