Board of Directors
Bruce Gale, Ph.D., Chairman. See management section.
Josh Eckman, Director. See management section.
Bill Tew, Ph.D., Director. Dr. Tew is an entrepreneurial executive with extensive experience in life sciences, biopharmaceuticals, and university technology licensing. As founder of Chesapeake Biological Laboratories, he served as chairman and CEO for almost two decades (1981-1999), developing and manufacturing bulk pharmaceuticals, parenteral drugs, and medical devices in compliance with FDA and cGMP regulations. Dr. Tew currently serves as the founder, CEO and President of Glycosan Biosystems, a privately held life-sciences technology company that develops hydrogels for 3D cell culture, tumor xenografts, angiogenesis, growth factor release, and tissue engineering.
Gary Sams, Ph.D., Director Dr. Gary Sams has worked as a Sales and Marketing executive for over 20 years in the life sciences research and drug discovery tools sectors. He has played pivotal roles at Promega, EG&G, Digene and Vysis (acquired by Abbott for $350MM in 2002). For the past five years Dr. Sams has worked as a Managing Partner of Beachhead Consulting Group. The Group’s clients include Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Perkin Elmer, and Caliper. Dr. Sams has also worked with many early-stage companies, including 454, Cytokinetics, Sequenom, and Nanogen. Prior to entering the commercial sector, Dr. Sams received his Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Kansas and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Cancer Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin.
Kirk Ririe, Director. Mr. Ririe is CEO and co-founder of Idaho Technology (ITI), a life science instrumentation company that develops, manufactures, and sells instruments for DNA analysis, including DNA amplification, real-time thermocycling, Hi-Res Melting™, mutation scanning and genotyping. Founded in 1990, ITI is a privately held company focused on worldwide applications in the defense, research, industrial and food security testing markets.