Bina Technologies, the genomic big data science company accelerating personalized medicine, has expanded its advisory board and commercial team. This announcement marks the latest in the company’s initiatives to significantly improve genomics data analysis workflows used in clinical research. Bina has expanded its scientific advisory board (SAB), adding four luminaries with experience in clinical genomics research. The company also has brought on two commercial team leaders, tapping into their combined 40+ years of experience driving revolutionary technologies into the genomics market.
In addition to existing SAB members Dr. Wing Wong, a professor of Statistics and of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University; Dr. Garry Nolan, professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Stanford School of Medicine and co-founder of several biotechnology companies including Rigel and Nodality; and Dr. Wawrzynek, professor of Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, Bina has added clinical genomicists Dr. Robert Green, Dr. Shashikant Kulkarni, Dr. Rong Chen and bioinformaticist Dr. Mark Gerstein.
Green, M.D., MPH is associate professor of Medicine in the division of Genetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and associate director for Research at the Partners HealthCare Center for Personalized Genetic Medicine.
Kulkarni, Ph.D., is the director of Cytogenomics and Molecular Pathology, director of Clinical Genomics research Unit and an associate professor of Pediatrics, Genetics and Pathology at the Washington University School of Medicine. Kulkarni directs a large CAP/CLIA accredited clinical genomics laboratory that performs breadth of genomic testing from chromosomes to NGS. His research focuses on identifying genomic events leading to better treatment of AML and multiple myeloma.
Chen is director of Clinical Genome Informatics at Icahn Institute of Genetics and Multiscale Biology. He leads Personalized Cancer Therapy to sequence both DNA and RNA of cancer patients, identify and integrate genomic alterations and identify driver genes and pathways to inform effective patient treatment.
Gerstein is the Albert Williams Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and Computer Science at Yale University. His research involves applying quantitative approaches such as data mining and simulation to problems in molecular biology, and genomics. Gerstein brings extensive experience in informatics and computation to the Bina scientific advisory board.
“The extensive experience of our new SAB members, each having distinguished themselves in clinical research, will be one of the driving factors in achieving Bina’s goal of revolutionizing clinical care by providing researchers with the tools to quickly and easily analyze large genomic data, ultimately helping with patient diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic selection,” said Narges Bani Asadi, CEO of Bina Technologies. “These experts will help assure that Bina’s analytical tools will enable the clinical research community to revolutionize medical care.”
The expanded SAB will offer expert guidance in providing tools that address the fields’ significant challenges around handling complex next-generation sequencing data sets. With the expanded SAB and new commercial leaders, Bina will focus on delivering powerful, accurate and easy-to-use analytical tools that enable the clinical research community.
In addition to the SAB, Bina also is growing its executive team with two new hires. Janet Lankard has been hired as vice president of sales, and Gianfranco de Feo, Ph.D., has joined Bina as vice president of marketing.
“Together, de Feo and Lankard bring 40 years of deep industry knowledge to Bina. Each of them have been fundamental in establishing groundbreaking new technologies, such as qPCR and microarrys, in the pharmaceutical, basic and clinical research communities,” said Narges Bani Asadi, CEO of Bina Technologies.
