People
Management Team:
Jeffrey H. Price
M.D., Ph.D., Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, previously founded Q3DM Inc in 1999 and it was sold to Beckman Coulter Inc in 2003. Dr. Price is also an Associate Professor at The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute where he trains graduate students from Bioengineering at UC San Diego. He began his career in high throughput microscopy research in 1987.
Patrick M. McDonough
Ph.D., Vice President of Biology, received his Ph.D. in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and has held appointments in cell and molecular biology at the University of California, San Diego Medical School, and San Diego State University Department of Biology. Dr. McDonough's expertise is focused in subcellular structure and dynamics of cardiac muscle, skeletal muscle, fibroblast, astrocytoma, nerve, kidney, and cervical tumor cells using fluorescence microscopy.
Randy Ingermanson
Ph.D., serves as Director of Software Engineering. Randy holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from UC Berkeley and has nearly twenty years experience in scientific software development. He has directed a number of complex software projects in industrial physics, applied engineering, and bioscience. Randy has special expertise in numerical solution of large numbers of nonlinear equations, in object-oriented analysis and design, and in image-processing applications. He is also a multi-published author, with one nonfiction book, six novels, and about a dozen writing awards to his credit.
Emily Arsenault
Controller, received her Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from San Diego State University. Emily brings a broad set of financial and operational management to the Vala team.
James G. Evans
Ph.D., Director of Automated Biotechnology, brings a combination of experience in academic research, industrial R&D, drug discovery, technology development and product commercialization. Dr. Evans has a background in molecular cell biology and imaging informatics and earned his PhD from the Medical Research Council at Edinburgh University in 1998. As a post-doc in the Matsudaira lab at the Whitehead Institute, he applied quantitative 3D and 4D imaging to study the dynamics of actin-rich podosomes during macrophage motility. Subsequently, Dr Evans developed high content imaging technologies for use in Systems Biology at MIT as part the Computational & Systems Biology Initiative (CSBi). As Assistant Director of the Whitehead MIT BioImaging Center, Dr Evans integrated diverse technologies developed in collaboration with commercial partners that addressed sample preparation, image acquisition, processing and analysis, data mining and high performance computing. After leaving MIT, Dr. Evans founded Anon Consulting providing strategic and technical consulting services to start-ups, established biotechs, technology providers and large pharma.
Staff:
Ross Whittaker
Ph.D., M.B.A., Product Manager, received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego via the San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego Joint Doctoral program. Dr. Whittaker's expertise is in the area of signal transduction, with an emphasis on cardiac signaling pathways activated during acute ischemic stress, such as during a heart attack. Dr. Whittaker also holds an M.B.A. from the San Diego State University School of Business.
Piyush Gehalot
M.S., Biomedical Instrumentation Engineer, received his Master of Science Degree in Biomedical Engineering from UT Arlington/UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Piyush has a background in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering and his areas of interest include application and device design for data/image acquisition and analysis. Prior to joining Vala Sciences, his work experience at UT Southwestern Medical Center involved developing tools and graphical user interface for image analysis and visualization using object-oriented design. Piyush heads up Vala Science's Service Department.
Fabio Cerignoli
Ph.D., Research Scientist, received his Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine from University of L'Aquila (Italy) and performed Postdoctoral Research at The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, CA. Dr. Cerignoli's areas of expertise include stem cell growth and cardiac differentiation, signal transduction and cancer proliferation. He brings the most disparate techniques to solve biological problems.
Board of Directors:
Mark McWilliams
MSME, Director, currently serves as CEO of Medipacs, an early stage medical device firm bringing to market a series of miniature, disposable infusion pumps. Prior to Medipacs, Mark was Director of Cell Imaging and Analysis at Beckman Coulter after the sale of Q3DM to Beckman in December 2003. He was Chief Executive Officer and Director of Q3DM, a life -sciences startup that brought to market a high-speed imaging and analysis system for life science research and diagnostics. Prior to Q3DM, Mark was founder and COO of Medication Delivery Devices (MDD), an alternate care infusion systems company that was acquired by Baxter Healthcare in 1996. Mr. McWilliams served as a VP of Research and Development at Baxter Healthcare for three years following the sale of MDD. Prior to MDD, he served as Product Development Manager at the founding of Block Medical where he was responsible for bringing the company's first two FDA approved products rapidly to market. Block was sold to Hillenbrand Industries in 1991. Mark serves on the board of directors of Spectra Science, a cancer diagnostic instrument company. He earned his MSME from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his BSME from Northeastern University and holds eight utility patents.
Paul J. Dostart
CPA, J.D., LL.M., Vice-Chair and Co-Founder, serves as Vala’s Executive Vice President. Mr.Dostart co-founded Q3DM Inc and has helped several of his law clients join the Inc. 500 list of America ’s most rapidly growing closely held businesses. Mr. Dostart is active in governance and regulatory issues affecting San Diego ’s biotechnology research community.
John K. Westwick
Ph.D., is President and CEO of Odyssey Thera, Inc., where he has led research and development efforts since 2002. Dr. Westwick worked previously at Celgene Corp. and Signal Pharmaceuticals. He holds a B.A. degree in Biology from the University of California at San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Pathology from the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Post-doctoral studies in Medicine and Pharmacology were performed at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and he was subsequently named the Lineberger Fellow at the UNC Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Westwick’s scientific and biotech career spans 27 years, and he has contributed to technology and drug development programs resulting in multiple drugs that are currently marketed and in human clinical trials. He has presented this work to over 200 international scientific conferences, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and published more than 60 scientific articles and patents. In addition to his work at Odyssey and Vala, Dr. Westwick serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Visionary Pharmaceuticals.
Strategic Advisors:
Scientific Advisory Board:
Mark Mercola, Ph.D., Professor, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute
Michael A. Mancini, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Baylor College of Medicine
Corporate and Securities Counsel:
Patrick Valentino, Corporate Counsel Group, LLC
Patent Counsel:
Terrance A. Meador, INCAPLAW, LLC
Accountant:
Squar, Milner, Peterson, Miranda & Williamson, LLP
