Funding Update: NIH Bioinformatics Grants Awarded March 13, April 24, 2014

Ryan Taft has joined Illumina as director of scientific research. Taft is laboratory head and senior research fellow at the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He holds a BSc in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California, Davis. Taft will maintain a joint appointment with UQ while working for Illumina.

Vermillion has tapped its James LaFrance, chairman of the firms' board of directors, to succeed Thomas McLain as president and CEO. LaFrance, who will continue to serve as Vermillion's board chairman, formerly was CEO of Omnyx, and he held executive leadership posts at Ventana Medical Systems and Bayer Diagnostics.

CollabRx has appointed Paul Billings to its board of directors. Billings is a board certified internist and clinical geneticist and most recently served as chief medical officer for Life Technologies. He is executive chairman of Melanoma Diagnostics, a director of Trovagene, and a co-founder and past medical director of the Cordblood Registry. He was also a senior vice president for corporate development at Laboratory Corporation of America and a co-founder of Omicia. Billings also currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the US Food and Drug Administration, the Genomic Medicine Advisory Committee at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicines Roundtable on Genomics.

Kathy Hibbs, former senior VP and general counsel at Genomic Health, has joined 23andMe as chief legal and regulatory officer. Hibbs joins 23andMe while the firm is in the midst of regulatory discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration regarding its Personal Genome Service. Hibbs has also worked at Monogram Biosciences and Varian Medical Systems, and is actively engaged in a number of industry groups, such as the American Clinical Laboratory Association, the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine, and the Personalized Medicine Coalition.

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Funding Update: NIH Bioinformatics Grants Awarded March 13, April 24, 2014