Virtual Conference

Dr. Edward “Ted” Graves is an Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology and, by courtesy, Radiology at Stanford University. He trained in Bioengineering at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco before performing a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital. Joining Stanford in 2003, he has built a research program focused on the development and application of novel molecular imaging methods to study tumor and normal tissue radiation biology and to improve clinical radiotherapy. He works within the Divisions of Medical Physics and Radiation and Cancer Biology and also collaborates extensively with the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford. Dr. Graves also serves as the first program director of the newly created Biomedical Physics PhD program sponsored by the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Radiology. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and is funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Defense.

Heike Elisabeth Daldrup-Link, MD, PhD, is a tenured Professor of Radiology, Director of the Pediatric Molecular Imaging Program, Co-Director of the Cancer Imaging Program and Associate Chair for Diversity in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University. Dr. Daldrup-Link is a Pediatric Radiologist with sub-specialization in cancer imaging. Her research program focuses on the development of novel imaging techniques for the detection and treatment monitoring of cancer in children. As a physician-scientist, she uncovered basic science principles in a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded basic science lab and brought the most promising medical imaging  innovations to her patients' bedside. Dr. Daldrup-Link has published over 170 peer-reviewed research articles, 20 book chapters and editorials, six textbooks, and six patents, pending or granted. Dr. Daldrup-Link is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI, honor society for clinician-scientists), fellow-elect of the World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS) and fellow-elect of the the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

Dr. Daldrup-Link significantly contributed to the diversification of the biomedical sciences through her tireless advocacy, mentorship and support of women and underrepresented minorities in the STEM field. She is widely known for her powerful reflections and opinion pieces on women in STEM (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11307-017-1124-4, Altmetric 90^th percentile of 278,392 tracked articles of similar age in all journals). Among her many activities as Associate Chair for Diversity in the Radiology Department at Stanford University, she provides training on cultural competence, she mentors and sponsors racial/ethic minorities and she identifies diverse candidates for career opportunities. She publishes a diversity newsletter, which educates interested readers on important topics related to diversity in the field of biomedical imaging (http://raddiversity.stanford.edu/news/). In 2020, she was awarded the Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Stanford Biosciences Program. On a national level, Dr. Daldrup-Link is member of the diversity initiatives of the Society for Pediatric Radiology and the World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS), she advances diversity in STEM through her LinkedIn discussion platform with more than 2,000 members and she organizes an annual conference on diversity in the biomedical sciences (https://www.wmislive.org/) with more than 1,000 participants from 30 Universities. She significantly influenced the career of her many underrepresented minority mentees at Stanford and many other Universities around the world, who are leading scientists, clinicians and entrepreneurs in North America and around the world today.

Sarah Bohndiek completed her PhD in Radiation Physics at University College London in 2008 and then worked in both the UK (at Cambridge) and the USA (at Stanford) as a postdoctoral fellow in molecular imaging. Sarah joined the University of Cambridge in 2013, where she is jointly appointed as a Professor of Biomedical Physics in the Department of Physics and at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

The broad mission of Sarah’s interdisciplinary team, the VISIONLab, is to advance our understanding of tumour evolution using next-generation imaging sciences. They are particularly interested in the study of blood vessel formation in early cancer. The VISIONLab are also active in translating their findings into first-in-human clinical trials. Sarah was recently awarded the CRUK Future Leaders in Cancer Research Prize and SPIE Early Career Achievement Award in recognition of her interdisciplinary research innovation.

In addition to her research programme, Sarah also takes an active role in teaching and mentoring the next generation of scientists. She has acted as an ambassador for public engagement and interdisciplinary research training throughout her career and acknowledging her generosity in this regard, Sarah has received the MSCA Award for Nurturing Research Talent and been invited to deliver numerous talks on career development at both national and international workshops.

Dr. Wang is the Leland T. Edwards Professor in the School of Engineering, Stanford University. He is a Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and jointly a Professor of Electrical Engineering, and by courtesy, a Professor of Radiology (Stanford School of Medicine). He directs the Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology and is a leading expert in biosensors, information storage and spintronics. His research and inventions span across a variety of areas including magnetic biochips, in vitro diagnostics, cancer biomarkers, magnetic nanoparticles, magnetic sensors, magnetoresistive random access memory, and magnetic integrated inductors. He has over 320 publications and holds 70 issued or pending patents in these and interdisciplinary areas. He was named an inaugural Fred Terman Fellow and was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),  a Fellow of American Physical Society (APS), and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors for his seminal contributions to magnetic materials and nanosensors. His team won the Grand Challenge Exploration Award from Gates Foundation (2010), the XCHALLENGE Distinguished Award (2014), and the Bold Epic Innovator Award from the XPRIZE Foundation (2017).

Dr. Wang cofounded five high-tech startups in Silicon Valley, including MagArray, Inc., Nvigen, Inc., and Flux Biosciences, Inc. Nvigen has produced high performance magnetic nanoparticle kits for extracting cell free DNA and rare cells from blood samples. In 2018 MagArray launched a first of its kind lung cancer early diagnostic assay based on protein cancer biomarkers and support vector machine (SVM), which is now covered by Medicare. In 2019, Flux Biosciences launched a human trial to offer at-home testing of fertility based on hormones and magneto-nanosensors. Through his participation in the Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (as co-PI of the CCNE) and the Joint University Microelectronics Program (JUMP), he is actively engaged in the transformative research of healthcare and is developing emerging memories for energy efficient computing.

Dr. Wang obtained his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1993, MS in Physics from Iowa State University in 1988, and BS in Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1986.

Dr. Olivier Gevaert is an associate professor at Stanford University focusing on developing machine-learning methods for biomedical decision support from multi-scale data. He is an electrical engineer by training with additional training in artificial intelligence, and a PhD in bioinformatics at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He continued his work as a postdoc in radiology at Stanford and then established his lab in the department of medicine in biomedical informatics. The Gevaert lab focuses on multi-scale biomedical data fusion primarily in oncology and neuroscience. The lab develops machine learning methods including Bayesian, kernel methods, regularized regression and deep learning to integrate molecular data or omics. The lab also investigates linking omics data with cellular and tissue data in the context of computational pathology, imaging genomics & radiogenomics.

Ken Drazan, MD is Chairman, CEO, and co-founder of ArsenalBio.  Immediately prior to Arsenal, Ken held the positions of President and Chief Business Officer of GRAIL (Acquired by ILMN). Prior to GRAIL, Ken founded and was a Board Director of Verb Surgical (Acquired by JNJ).  Ken also co-founded private equity firm Bertram Capital with $1.9B AUM.  Ken is a Board-certified liver transplant surgeon with previous faculty appointments at Stanford and UCLA.

 AbulKalam M. Shamsuddin, MD, PhD is a Founder and Vice-President for Research at Early Detection, Inc. (www.cancer.us) and President of IP-6 Research, Inc. (www.ip-6.net). He was a Professor of Pathology at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, till June 2020.

Prof Shamsuddin graduated from Dhaka Medical College, University of Dhaka in 1972. Following Internship in Massachusetts and Residency training in pathology in Maryland, he was certified by the American Board of Pathology in 1977. In 1980, he received Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland for his work on colon carcinogenesis. He joined the faculty of the University of Maryland as an Instructor in 1977 and rose through the ranks of Assistant Professor and Associate Professor with tenure to become a full Professor in 1988.

He had invented a simple test for mass screening of cancers of the colon, breast, lungs, prostate, uterus and pancreas. He also performed pioneering experiments on the anti-cancer property of inositol and inositol hexaphosphate (IP₆) - natural constituents of cereals and legumes such as rice, corn, beans etc. to show the efficacy of IP₆ and inositol against different cancers in various experimental models. Prof Shamsuddin has written three books on the subject "IP₆: Nature's Revolutionary Cancer Fighter" (Kensington Publishing Corporation, New York, 1998); “IP₆ + Inositol: Nature’s Medicine for the Millennium” (Amazon.com, 2011); and “Inositol and It’s Phosphates: Basic Science to Practical Applications” (Bentham Science, Sharjah 2015). Aside from these Prof Shamsuddin has contributed numerous book-chapters and published over 200 scientific papers. He is a well sought-after lecturer nationally and internationally.

Marcel Gehrung is co-founder and CEO of Cyted, a company working on digital diagnostic infrastructure to enable the early detection of disease. Marcel holds a PhD in Machine Learning in Healthcare from the University of Cambridge. In 2020, he raised £8.7M for Cyted to develop pipelines of digital and molecular tests for risk stratification to streamline diagnostic and clinical workflows. Cyted is initially focused on the early detection of oesophageal cancer, where the combination of an identifiable at-risk population and excellent therapy options offers a unique opportunity to improve patient outcomes and relieve pressures on healthcare resources.

Jimmy Lin, MD, Ph.D., MHS was the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), Oncology at Natera (NASDAQ: NTRA), where he lead the development of new diagnostic technologies for cancer. Dr. Lin is also a 2016 Senior TED Fellow and Founder & President of Rare Genomics Institute, the world's first platform to enable any community to leverage cutting- edge biotechnology to advance understanding of any rare disease. Previously, Dr. Lin led the ClinOmics program in the Genetics Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI). Before this, he led the computational analysis of the first-ever exome sequencing studies of cancer at Johns Hopkins and was a research instructor at Washington University in St. Louis. He has numerous publications in Science, Nature, Cell, Nature Genetics, and Nature Biotechnology, and has been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, TIME, and the Huffington Post.