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Stephen P.A. Fodor is a native of Seattle, Washington. He received his B.S. in Biology and M.S. in Biochemistry from Washington State University and his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Princeton University. From 1986 to 1989, he was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at The University of California, Berkeley, working on time-resolved spectroscopy of bacterial and plant pigments. In 1989 he was recruited to the Affymax Research Institute in Palo Alto where he spearheaded the effort to develop high-density arrays of biological compounds. Dr. Fodor and colleagues were the first to develop and describe microarray technologies and combinatorial chemistry synthesis. In 1993, Dr. Fodor co-founded Affymetrix where the chip technology has been used to synthesize many varieties of high density oligonucleotide arrays containing hundreds of thousands of DNA probes. These DNA chips have broad commercial applications and are now used in many areas of basic and clinical research including the detection of drug resistance mutations in infectious organisms, direct DNA sequence comparison of large segments of the human genome, the monitoring of multiple human genes for cancer associated mutations, the quantitative and parallel measurement of mRNA expression for thousands of human genes, and the physical and genetic mapping of the human genome. In 2001, Dr. Fodor founded Perlegen, Inc., a new venture that applied the chip technology on uncovering the basic patterns of human diversity. The adoption of the technology by both commercial and research institutions for these and other applications continues to grow rapidly.
Thomas J. Fogarty is a specialist whose creative talents have impacted many diverse professional and entrepreneurial arenas. In addition to his teaching responsibilities as Professor of Surgery at Stanford University, Dr. Fogarty performs numerous cardiac and peripheral vascular surgeries, manages several medical device companies founded upon his product designs, is founder and active Senior Partner in the venture capital firm of Three Arch Partners, and also finds time to pursue his interest in oenology at the family owned and operated Thomas Fogarty Winery and Vineyards. During the past 40 years he has acquired over 70 surgical patents, including the "industry standard" Fogarty balloon embolectomy catheter. Patented in 1969, this first balloon catheter for the vascular system was a sophisticated version of the original crude instrument that young Tom Fogarty, then an OR scrub technician, designed in the late 1950's using a surgical glove finger tied to a ureteral catheter. Other commercially successful medical products designed by the Fogarty engineering group include a minimally invasive device for breast cancer diagnosis and therapy, and also a self-expanding stent-graft used to treat critical aortic aneurysms via a minimally invasive technique. Dr. Fogarty is a past recipient of the Inventor of the Year award given by the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Association, a four-time recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Presentation award presented by the American College of Surgeons, and was the first recipient to receive the award for "Achievement in Medicine" bestowed by the Santa Clara County Medical Association. Selected recent awards include the 2000 Lemelson-MIT $500,000 Prize for Invention and Innovation as well as the Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation Foundation's Annual Laufman-Greatbatch Prize for inventing breakthrough medical devices. Later in 200
The founder of a placement agency recommends that entrepreneurs join various types of peer groups to piece together the support and contacts necessary to launch and build a company.
From a lab at MIT to connecting 50,000 high school students live around the world, Norman Gaut's team at PictureTel were pioneers in connecting the world via real-world time, visual communications.
Mr. Gifford leads The Foundry in all of its activities, including the identification and early development of new technologies, the formation, staffing and growth of new companies, and serving as a board member of the new ventures. Most recently, Mr. Gifford was Vice President of Research and Development at Heartport, Inc.. From 1993-1998, he built and led a 62-person team developing a wide variety of novel devices and procedures for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery that were instrumental in the company's enormously successful public offering in 1996. Heartport's market capitalization at its peak in 1996 reached over $1 billion. In 1992, Mr. Gifford and Professor Dr. Berthold Hoefling co-founded Bavaria Medizin Technologie (BMT), GmbH, to develop innovative drug delivery catheters and to establish a German source for innovation and production of catheters for Interventional Cardiology. During the two-year period following the founding of this business, he served in the role of Managing Director of BMT until such time as he transitioned management of the company to a German national. In 1990, Mr. Gifford and John B. Simpson, MD, Ph.D., founded Cardiovascular Therapeutic Technologies, Inc., a business devoted to the development of innovative local drug delivery catheters for thrombolytic and antiproliferative agents. Eli Lilly and Company acquired this business for its technology in 1991, and it became the original basis for Guidant's Compass organization. From 1985-1990, Mr. Gifford worked at Devices for Vascular Intervention (DVI), where he was the driving force behind the design of the company's first generation Peripheral and Coronary atherectomy systems. In addition, during this period he served in various Clinical Research and Marketing capacities. Before joining DVI, Hanson worked in an engineering role at Oximetrix, Inc., working in the field of intravascular blood gas monitoring
A treatment for tinnitus is the goal of two Ohio University colleagues who were frustrated by the lack of options for those suffering from this hearing disorder. Read more to find out how this medical device differs from its competitors.
Biotech companies will have a new resource in the Ohio University Innovation Center’s new biotech research and development facility. Read more to learn about what it will offer.
Every year Cleveland Clinic compiles a list of the best healthcare innovations for the future. Here are our suggestions for the best healthcare innovations in recent biotech news.
Databases are an essential tool for matching buyers and sellers for specialty products and services, says the founder of the nation's largest database company servicing small businesses.
Danish-born David Heinemeier Hansson is the programmer and creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web development framework and the Instiki wiki. He is also a partner at the Web-based software development firm 37signals, based in Chicago. Ruby on Rails provides a "basic development environment" for programmers, according to Wikipedia.org. Based on the programming language Ruby (developed by Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto in 1995), Ruby on Rails focuses on user interface and "convention over configuration"; meaning, developers can focus on the unique qualities of their Web site or program rather than the building blocks that every application may require. Released in 2004, Ruby on Rails has been incorporated into many applications used by some of the biggest companies, from Twitter to Apple's 2007 release of Mac OS X v.10.5 "Leopard." Aside from his development of Ruby on Rails, Heinemeier Hansson also works as a partner for Web-based software development firm 37signals. Joining the company in 2003, he has helped develop Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack and other Web-based applications. Working in similar ways like Web-based e-mail services like Yahoo! e-mail and Google's Gmail, 37signals hosts a broad range of IT services for companies, including project management to information-sharing. The firm's software has been used by Kellogg's, Sun Microsystems and even Obama '08. Hansson received his bachelor's degree from the Copenhagen Business School in 2005. In that same year, he moved to Chicago and received Hacker of the Year honors for his work on Ruby on Rails from Google and O'Reilly Media. He runs a blog called LoudThinking.com.
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