Steve McPhail, President & Chief Executive Officer

BS Biology - San Diego State University

Steve has spent his career serving companies in the diagnostic, biotechnology and medical device markets. He previously acted as executive vice president and Chief Operating Officer of ArgoMed, Inc. Earlier, Steve held senior-level sales, marketing and business development positions for Xanthon, TriPath Imaging, Dynex Technologies and Abbott Laboratories. He has extensive experience in executing mergers and acquisitions, developing strategic marketing plans, and establishing global distribution networks. He serves on the board of the NC Children’s Hospital and the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Network.

Eric Setzer, Chief Financial Officer

MBA - Duke University, The Fuqua School of Business

Eric has more than 15 years of hands-on experience with the operational and financial challenges faced by growing technology and life science companies. His background includes general management, mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financings, initial public offerings, private placements and business strategy. Eric was most recently Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Kolis Scientific, a Research Triangle Park medical device start up. Earlier, he was CFO of two separate venture capital-funded, start-up companies in the health care technology sector, and the Controller of TriPath Imaging, a publicly traded cervical cytology screening company.

Dr. Wendell Jones, Vice President, Statistics & Bioinformatics

PhD Statistics - Clemson University

Wendell is a consulting statistician and thought leader in industry. His interests are bioinformatics, statistical modeling, statistical graphics, and analyzing large datasets. Wendell has been a lead participant in the Microarray Quality Control (MAQC) project and is co-chair of the Clinical Working Group in MAQC Phase II, examining the capabilities of microarrays for predicting outcomes in complex diseases. As a faculty adjunct within the School of Medicine at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wendell supports student research in biology and genetics.

Patrick Hurban, Vice President of Research & Development

PhD Human Genetics - University of Utah School of Medicine

Dr. Hurban has a wealth of genomic experience, graduating from University of Utah School of Medicine with his Ph.D (Human Genetics) in 1994 and later performed his Postdoctoral Research at Stanford University School of Medicine in the Departments of Developmental Biology and Biochemistry; additionally he has held several positions of increasing responsibility in high-profile genomics-focused organizations. His research interests have focused on the genetic control of gene expression and have spanned diverse fields including toxicology as well as developmental and cancer biology.

Karen Michailo, Senior Director of Marketing

JD - Western State College of Law

Karen has spent most of her career in senior-level marketing positions for diverse organizations across varied industries. For a number of years, Karen worked with life science and biotechnology firms, specializing in the planning and implementation of marketing initiatives.  Her strengths are in strategic planning and implementation. Karen is an award winning marketer winning two 2009 Diagnostic Marketing Association (DxMA) Creative Communications Awards for her Cure Kids Cancer “Leave Your Fingerprint on the Cure” campaign.  The campaign received first place in the category of Interactive Exhibit Kiosks and was recognized as overall “Best of Show”.

Louise Grant, Director of Operations

MBA Loyola College

Louise has over twenty years experience in the clinical diagnostics industry. Her experience includes clinical laboratory work and research at John’s Hopkins Medical Institution in Baltimore as well as Research & Development, Technical Support and Product Management at Becton Dickinson.  Most recently she was with bioMérieux as Microbiology Program Director.

Kellie A. Yarnell, Director of Sales

BS Biochemistry - University of Delaware

Kellie has a wide range of experience providing technical support and selling genotyping, microarray, and DNA sequencing instrumentation to pharmaceutical, biotech, and academic communities. As national sales manager, she oversees Expression Analysis’ sales representatives and supports several key pharmaceutical accounts in the United States and internationally. Before launching into a sales career in 2001, she provided laboratory and technical support for agricultural genetic testing. Her resume includes positions selling nucleic acid isolation kits and RNAi libraries for Sigma Aldrich and targeted DNA genotyping and sequencing instrumentation for Beckman Coulter.

Nichole Martin, MSQA, CQA, CMQ/OE- Director Quality Systems

BS Biochemistry and minor in Genetics - North Carolina State University

Nichole worked as a cytogenetics technologist for several years with a diagnostics company in RTP, prior to beginning her career in quality within the plasma-derived pharmaceutical industry. She is a senior member of the American Society for Quality and is a Certified Quality Auditor and Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence. She has also successfully completed a Master’s Degree in Quality Assurance program from California State University, Dominguez Hills with her culminating thesis discussing the relationship between personal and professional quality.

Richard Hockett, MD

Chief Medical Officer for Affymetrix

John Ryan, MD, PhD

Chief Medical Officer for AVEO Pharmaceuticals

Buzz Sztukowski

Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer for BioTrove