Point-of-Care Diagnostics World Congress 2013 Keynote Speakers

Chong Ahn Distinguished University Research Professor, Mitchell P. Kartalia Chair Professor of BioMEMS, University of Cincinnati Dr Ahn is Distinguished University Research Professor and Mitchell P. Kartalia Endowed Chair Professor of BioMEMS in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Cincinnati. He is currently Director of the Engineering Research Center (ERC) Clean Room and Ohio Center for Microfluidic Innovation (OCMI) at the University of Cincinnati. He has been recognized internationally as one of the pioneers in the Biosensors, BioMEMS, Microfluidics, Lab-on-a-Chips, and Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) clinical diagnostic fields. His research interests include the design, simulation, fabrication and characterization of BioMEMS devices, microfluidic device and systems, biosensors and biochips, lab-on-a-chips, in vitro diagnostics (IVD), and point-of-care testing clinical diagnostics or neurosurgical monitoring. He has published over ~350 journal and peer-reviewed conference proceeding papers, and chaired numerous international conferences and steering committees. He was invited as a plenary or keynote speaker from the prestigious international conferences such as uTAS, Eurosensors, APCOT, or IEEE IEDM. He served as one of the Scientific Advisory Board members of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on microfluidics and point-of-care testing diagnostics in 2016. He has 12 issued US patents. He was the founder of Siloam Biosciences Inc. (which was acquired by Mico BioMed Inc.) in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He was the awardees of the University of Cincinnati’s Emerging Entrepreneur Award (2009) and Established Entrepreneur Award (2011). He received Alice Hamilton Award for Excellence in Occupational Safety and Health Research from CDC-NIOSH in 2020, and received the Best Journal Paper Award of the IEEE Sensors Journal in 2009. He currently serve as an Editor of the IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems (JMEMS), Editorial Boards of Micro and Nano Systems Letters and Biochip Journal, Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, and previously served as the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering (JMM), IEEE Sensors Journal, and Small.
Norman Nelson Senior Consultant, NCN Enterprises Dr. Nelson received his BS in Chemistry from The California Institute of Technology in 1976 and his PhD in Chemistry from the University of California at San Diego in 1982. He joined Gen-Probe (a leading molecular diagnostics company) in 1985, where over his 27 year tenure held positions of increasing responsibility, culminating in the role of Senior Director of Discovery Research. Dr. Nelson has extensive experience in the development of technology for FDA-regulated molecular diagnostic products. He is also an expert in Next Generation Sequencing, including direct experience with Illumina, Ion Torrent & Pacific Biosciences platforms. He also has a proven track record in innovation, as well as the associated reduction to practice and implementation. As an inventor or co-inventor on 26 issued U.S. patents, and more than 100 issued and pending patents world-wide, he played a key role in the commercialization of multiple technologies, many of which are core to Gen-Probe products that generate >$500MM in annual revenue. He also has broad expertise and experience in intellectual property protection. Dr. Nelson now owns his own consulting business, NCN Enterprises.
John Quackenbush Professor, Dana Farber Cancer Institute John Quackenbush received his PhD in 1990 in theoretical physics from UCLA working on string theory models. Following two years as a postdoctoral fellow in physics, Dr. Quackenbush applied for and received a Special Emphasis Research Career Award from the National Center for Human Genome Research to work on the Human Genome Project. He spent two years at the Salk Institute and two years at Stanford University working at the interface of genomics and computational biology. In 1997 he joined the faculty of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) where his focus began to shift to understanding what was encoded within the human genome. Since joining the faculties of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Harvard School of Public Health in 2005, his work has focused on the use of genomic data to reconstruct the networks of genes that drive the development of diseases such as cancer and emphysema.