Cancer Moonshot and Genomics

Former President Barack Obama announced the establishment of a Cancer Moonshot to accelerate cancer research. The initiative - led by former Vice President Joe Biden, aimed to make more therapies available to more patients, while also improving our ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage. In recently concluded JP Morgan conference, Joe Biden, was optimistic about progress in this area and said "this program has potential to do what we have done for HIV". This HTF event, has a distinguished panel comprising of companies and academia assisting in this lofty goal. Come listen to the work each one of our panelists is doing in genomics.

6:00 - 6:50 - Networking and Snacks

6:50 - 7:00 - Announcements and Introductions

7:00 - 8:30 - Panel Discussion and Q&A

8:30 - 8:45 - Networking with Speakers

Featured Speakers:

-Emma Huang is an Associate Scientific Director at Janssen R&D, leading the Population Analytics team in Discovery Sciences. She received her doctorate in Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina in 2007, and from 2007 to 2015 held positions at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), where her research focused on identification of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors for use in trait prediction. She has received numerous awards including an Australian Research Council DECRA and the CSIRO Julius Career Award. At Janssen her team helps develop and support cross-enterprise precision medicine initiatives through analysis of large-scale population data.

-Michael Snyder is the Stanford Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics and the Director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Dr. Snyder received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics, and one of the major participants of the ENCODE project. His laboratory study was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism, and has developed many technologies in genomics and proteomics.

-Darren Leva is an Account Manager at Seven Bridges Genomics. He enjoys the dichotomy of an entrepreneur and corporate cubical dweller. Darren has held commercial roles in both life science and software companies, including founding a software company, building it and later having it acquired. With over a decade of experience, Darren's core expertise centers around business development, sales and marketing. Darren is most known for his creative problem solving, authenticity, and no-nonsense style of management. He is passionate about the intersection of life sciences, software, and patient outcomes.

Gabe Otte CEO and Co-founder Freenome. He created and released his first public application at the age of 11. At 17, he was hired as an engineer at Apple where he helped bring about the first iPhone. Since then, he has studied Computer Science, Biology, Chemistry and Philosophy at Cornell University and has worked as the Senior Software Engineer at tech companies such as Glyde, Tumblr, Filemaker and more. He has an extensive background in mobile development, technology development and machine learning. While working on his PhD in computational biology at the University of Pennsylvania, he published several papers on applications of machine learning on large genomics datasets and other big data. In 2014, he founded Freenome to tackle early cancer detection using his background in AI and molecular biology.

Mark Jacobstein is the Chief User Engagement Officer for Guardant Health, the world’s leaders in liquid biopsies. Mark was the CEO of iSkoot before selling the company to Qualcomm, where he led Qualcomm iSkoot Technologies. Prior Mark was an EVP at loopt, and the founding President of Digital Chocolate. Mark was the CEO and founder of Small World Sports, the world's first online fantasy sports business, which he sold to Paul Allen's The Sporting News. In 1994 Mark co-founded Small World Software, an Internet technology consultancy, which he sold to iXL in 1998.

Moderator: Sunil Maulik is an investor and advisor and has over twenty years of experience in Silicon Valley. He has co-founded three companies (PeoplePower, an energy analytics company, 500Friends, a social e-commerce analytics company, and GeneEd, a provider of healthcare e-learning). In addition, he has held senior sales and management positions at Pangea Systems, Tripos, Hoffmann-La Roche, Oxford Molecular and IntelliGenetics.

Thanks to our Sponsor Hogan Lovells, LLP.