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| Neurotech
Reports Editors |
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James Cavuoto, Editor
and Publisher
James Cavuoto is editor and publisher of Neurotech Business Report
and the founder of Neurotech Reports. He was the lead author of "The
Market for Neurotechnology," a market research report published
by Neurotech Reports. Cavuoto was the founder of Micro Publishing
Press, Inc., a publishing company that helped pioneer the market for
electronic publishing, digital imaging, and computer graphics. He
holds a degree in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve
University, where he studied under pioneers in the field of functional
electrical stimulation. He has also studied human factors engineering
at University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Cavuoto spent
three years as a member of the technical staff at Hughes Aircraft
Company in Los Angeles, where he worked on simulation, training, and
publication products produced for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Cavuoto is an adjunct professor at Rochester Institute
of Technology and the author of eight books on computer graphics,
electronic publishing, and digital imaging. He is a member of the
IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.
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Glenn Cornett, M.D.,
Ph.D., Senior Financial Editor
Glenn Cornett is an experienced neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and
financial consultant, with a background in research and business development.
After earning his Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA and his M.D. from
University of Michigan Medical School, Glenn spent several years as
a technology and healthcare consultant with McKinsey & Company.
He has also held marketing and business development positions at Lilly
& Company and Razorfish. He currently runs his own consulting
firm, Metastrat, in Palo Alto, CA, providing strategic advisory services
to biotechnology and medical device firms.
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Warren Grill, Ph.D., Senior Technology Editor
Warren M. Grill is one of the nation's leading experts in neural stimulation and neural prostheses. Dr. Grill is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. He earned his Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve University, where he was most recently Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering. He has been nominated for both undergraduate and graduate teaching awards. He and his colleagues were awarded the 2002 Excellence in Neural Engineering Award by the IEEE-EMBS / BMES and he was named the 2003 Neurotechnology Researcher of the Year by Neurotech Business Report. Dr. Grill serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering and Neuromodulation and as a Consultant to the Neurological Devices Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee, U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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| Panelists and Presenters |
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Daniel DiLorenzo, M.D., Ph.D., President, DiLorenzo Biomedical
Daniel DiLorenzo is the founder of NeuroVista Corp. (formerly BioNeuronics Corp.). Dan has received numerous awards including the 1999 Lemelson-MIT Student Innovation Award for his groundbreaking work in the neuroengineering and medical device fields. He was named one of the 1999 Technology Review TR100 (100 innovators most likely to have an impact on technology) and was recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine as the “New Genius, Innovation” in 2000. Dan is currently on the advisory board for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. He holds numerous issued and pending patents in the neural engineering and medical device field and is the editor of the upcoming CRC Press volume on Neural Engineering. Dan earned his undergraduate and masters degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. He received his M.D. from the joint Harvard Medical School/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, his Ph.D. from MIT in Mechanical Engineering (focusing on Neuroscience, control theory, and neural interfaces), and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management. Dan passed the U.S. Patent Bar, served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and completed the first half of his neurosurgical clinical residency at Tulane University prior to taking leave to secure funding and recruit a team and launch BioNeuronics. He spent two years as Founding CEO and later as CTO launching BioNeuronics, and has resumed neurosurgery at The Methodist Hospital in Houston Texas. He remains an advisor to BioNeuronics and is Founder and President of DiLorenzo Biomedical, LLC, developer of revolutionary medical device technologies. |
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Ranu Jung, Ph.D., CEO, Advensys LLC
Ranu Jung, explores bioengineering technology to improve life for people with certain disabilities. Her interests lie in a comprehensive understanding of neuromotor organization, developing living-hardware systems for motor control that mimic natural human abilities, developing strategies for neuromotor therapy and examining the effects of neurotrauma and other neurodegenerative disease on health and function. With a body of published work, which includes several peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and conference papers, Dr. Jung is a frequently invited speaker. She is a member of the boards of directors for the Computational Neuroscience Organization and the Rocky Mountain Bioengineering Symposium Inc. She is a senior member of the Society of Women Engineers, and holds membership in American Association of the Advancement of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Society for Neuroscience, the National Neurotrauma Society, and the National lnstitutes of Health’s Respiratory Integrative Biology and Translational Research Study Section. Dr. Jung received her BTech degree with distinction in electronics and communication engineering from the Regional Engineering College in Warangal, India, and an M.S. and PhD in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University. Dr Jung relishes the university environment that offers the opportunity for one-on-one teaching, discovering new things, and pursuing dreams. |
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Elliot Krames, M.D., President, International Neuromodulation Society
Elliot S. Krames, MD, is a board-certified anesthesiologist who has been practicing pain medicine solely for the past 20 years. He is a pioneer and one of the leading experts in the field of intraspinal analgesia. He is a worldwide-recognized leader and educator in the field of neuromodulation for pain control. He has written extensively on implantable technologies for pain management and has conducted national and international symposia related to this topic. Dr. Krames, for over 10 years, has been the Medical director of Pacific Pain Treatment Centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, an organization of pain clinics dedicated to interdisciplinary pain medicine. He is co-founder of the National Pain Foundation, a founding member of the American Neuromodulation Society and he participates on the Boards of the International and American Neuromodulation Societies, World Institute of Pain, and the American Academy of Pain Medicine. He serves as scientific advisor and is on the speaker's bureaus of several major medical corporations. Dr. Krames was the Chairman of the Worldwide Pain Conference of the International and American Neuromodulation Societies the World Institute of Pain and the World Society of Pain Clinicians, held July 15 - 21, 2000 in San Francisco, USA. Dr Krames is the Editor-in-Chief of Neuromodulation, The Journal of the International Neuromodulation Society. He is president elect of the INS and will take office in 2007. |
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Karen Boezi, Partner, Thomas McNerney & Partners
Karen is a co-founder of Thomas, McNerney & Partners and has over 15 years of experience investing in health care companies. She is currently a board member of Leptos Biomedical, Inc., NaviMedix, Inc., NeuroTherapeutics Pharma, Inc. and Ocera Therapeutics, Inc. Previous investments include Coulter Pharmaceutical, Inc. (CLTR sold to CRXA which was subsequently sold to GSK), Endocardial Solutions, Inc. (ECSI sold to STJ), Epicor Medical, Inc. (sold to STJ) and NeXagen, Inc. (NXGN/NXTR sold to GILD with spin-outs to EYET, Archemix and SomaLogic). Karen joined Coral Ventures in 1994 where she became a General Partner and managed the firm’s West Coast office. Previously, Karen was a member of Warburg Pincus LLC’s medical technology venture capital group. While at Warburg, she focused on seed stage investments in the life science industry and was the start-up manager for two biotechnology companies, including NeXagen, Inc. Prior to joining Warburg in 1990, Karen was an analyst in the health care corporate finance department at Alex. Brown & Sons, Inc. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude with a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Karen is currently a member of The Permanente Company LLC’s Board of Directors and founded the West Coast Chapter of the Wharton Private Equity Network. |
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Ben Pless, Ph.D., President and CEO, Autonomic Technologies, Inc.
Ben Pless has over 25 years of experience developing and bringing to market implantable medical devices. Most recently he was the chief operating officer and chief technical officer of NeuroPace, a privately-held company developing electronic implantable devices for the treatment of neurological disorders, such as epilepsy. Prior to joining NeuroPace in 2000, he was responsible for worldwide development activities for the Cardiac Rhythm Management Division of St. Jude Medical, Inc. Mr. Pless previously served as vice president of product development for Ventritex, Inc. and general manager of its Maven Capacitors division until the sale of the company to St. Jude Medical in 1997. He was a founder of Ventritex where he was instrumental in the development of one of the first implantable cardiac defibrillators. His career began at Intermedics, where he was a development engineer for implantable pacemakers. Mr. Pless is a member of the board of directors of several start-up medical device companies and regularly provides consulting services to the venture capital community. Mr. Pless received a B.S.E.E. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and attended graduate school at Rice University. He is a named inventor on approximately 100 patents and patent applications. |
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Dominique Durand, Ph.D., Professor of Biomedical Engineering,
Case Western Reserve University
Dominique Durand is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. He uses computational neuroscience, engineering and electrophysiology to solve problems in the central and peripheral nervous systems. |
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Geoff Thrope, President and CEO, NDI Medical Inc.
Geoff Thrope founded NDI Medical in 2002, after a successful career as a neurostim industry executive and researcher. From 1994 to 2002, he was a project director and vice president of new business development with NeuroControl Corp., where he led the team’s successful product commercialization efforts for bladder and hand restoration systems directed towards spinal cord injured individuals. From 1979 through 1994, he worked at Case Western Reserve University’s prestigious neurostim research center, becoming the Program Director responsible for commercialization of upper extremity neuroprosthetic research applications. Thrope is credited with co-inventing the Freehand system, the world's first commercially available motor control neuroprosthesis. Thrope, who earned a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland and attended graduate school at Kent State University, has published and presented more than 50 academic articles on the subject of neuroprosthetic systems and has more than 15 neurostimulation patents issued and pending. |
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Robert Abrams, Operating Principal, Sanderling Ventures
Rob Abrams has over 27 years of experience in biomedical device product development, research, operational management, new business development and strategic investments. Rob joined Sanderling as an Operating Partner in April 2008. Prior to joining Sanderling, Rob served 12 years at Boston Scientific Corp. as Group Vice President of New Business Development for BSC’s Cardiovascular Group Divisions, which included Neurovascular, Cardiac Surgery, Neuromodulation, Electrophysiology, and Peripheral Interventional Divisions. In this role, he also served on executive management boards, and patent and legal review boards. During his tenor at BSC, Rob completed acquisition of Smart Therapeutics, Inc. for intracranial stents, and other minimally invasive access devices, Precision Vascular Systems, Inc. a steerable guidewire/catheter company, and several neuromodulation companies, including acquisition of Advanced Bionics Corp. He also led the corporate program to explore technology for acute ischemic stroke therapy, and transacted several investments in that realm. Rob had become a part of BSC via their acquisition of Target Therapeutics, where he was Director of New Business Development from July 1996. Prior to joining Target, Rob was Director of Product Development for LocalMed, Inc., a start-up dedicated to devices for catheter-based local drug delivery in cardiac vasculature. From 1988 through 1995, Rob served various roles at Guidant Corporation in their Cardiovascular Business. He served as Director of R&D for the intrapreneurial Guidant Division, Heart Rhythm Technologies, developing devices for EP cardiac arrhythmias. Overall, Rob has 65 patents in medical devices. Rob received his Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, graduating summa cum laude. |
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