VP Innovation Partnerships at Cardea

Dr. Francie Barron has made it her mission in life to always follow her “nerdy delight,” which has led to a diverse career in science and business. Dr. Barron obtained her BS in Biochemistry/Cell Biology at the University of California, San Diego where her emphasis was on cancer and immunology. She continued to a PhD in Cell Biology, Stem Cells, and Development from the University of Colorado, Denver Anschutz Medical Campus where she elucidated a gene transcriptional pathway in lower jaw development. As a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, Dr. Barron used iPSC-induced cardiomyocytes as a disease model for drug toxicity studies of novel anti-arrhythmic compounds. She then returned to San Diego where she was a Regulatory Affairs and Medical Writing consultant, until she joined Cardea Bio in 2015. Cardea Bio is the first semiconductor company to produce Biosignal Processing Units, or BPUs, providing a Gateway to Biology by translating real-time streams of multi-omics signals to digital information. As VP R&D and Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Barron learned more physics, nanotechnology, engineering, and software then she ever thought she would, and combined with her background was able to launch the first drug discovery research tool utilizing mass-produced BPUs that is still in use today. In 2019, Dr. Barron transitioned to business development at Cardea Bio as VP Innovation Partnerships, where she interacts with commercial and academic partners to create and execute on projects to bring Powered by Cardea products to the market.   

Dr. Bernhard H Weigl is the Director of Diagnostics at Global Health Labs, a new nonprofit organization created by Gates Ventures and the Gates Foundation, and the successor organization to Global Good. Gates Ventures is Bill Gates’ private office. He is also an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington, Department of Bioengineering. At GHL, and at IV/GG previously, Dr. Weigl leads work to develop the next generation of highly sensitive diagnostic assays for diseases of relevance in developing countries, including TB, cervical cancer, malaria, and more recently, Covid. His current work focuses on diagnostic technology R&D with relevance to Global Health applications including ultra-sensitive stripbased immunoassays, molecular assays in cartridge and digital formats, novel assay formats, and other biotechnology research for low resource settings. Previously Dr. Weigl led the PATH Diagnostics Group where he oversaw global health diagnostics programs funded by a variety of sources such as NIAID and NIBIB, the Grand Challenges program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, and the PATH Health Innovation Portfolio. He also served as Portfolio Leader for Non-Communicable Disease Diagnostics and as Director of the National Institutes of Health-funded Center for Point-of-Care Diagnostics for Global Health. Before joining PATH, both at the University of Washington and at Micronics, Inc. (Redmond, Washington, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America) where he was a scientific cofounder), Dr. Weigl led teams that developed both instrument-based and stand-alone microfluidic medical diagnostic disposables, including the first FDA-approved instrument-free microfluidic test, the ABORhCard®. His scientific interests include traditional and paper-based microfluidics as well as any assay platform that allows simplification and integration of previously complex assays. As chronic diseases, and especially diabetes, are emerging as a major health threat in developing countries he has also focusing on their diagnosis, screening, and treatment. Other areas of interest include diagnostics-related health systems topics such as more rational diagnostic algorithms, and evaluation and selection of the most appropriate diagnostic tool for a particular application using metrics beyond sensitivity and specificity. He has led projects across the diagnostics value chain, from invention and proof of principle though product introduction and support. He received his M.Sc (Mag. rer. nat.) and Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) from Karl-Franzens-University Graz and has completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Southampton and the University of Washington. He has authored more than 140 scientific publications and is an inventor on over 80 US patents and published patent applications. His work has been cited over 13,000 times by other researchers.

Prof. Luke P. Lee received both his BA in Biophysics and PhD in Applied Physics and Bioengineering from UC Berkeley. He joined the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1999 after more than a decade of industry experience. He became the Lester John and Lynne Dewar Lloyd Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering in 2005. He also served as the Chair Professor in Systems Nanobiology at the ETH Zürich from 2006 to 2007. He became Arnold and Barbara Silverman Distinguished Professor at Berkeley in 2010. He founded the Biomedical Institute for Global Healthcare Research & Technology (BIGHEART). He served as Associate President (International Research and Innovation) and Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore from 2016 to 2018. He is the founding director of the Institute of Quantum Biophysics, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea. He is now serving as Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham Women’s Hospital. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. His work at the interface of biological, physical, and engineering sciences for translational medicine has been recognized by many honors, including the IEEE William J. Morlock Award, NSF Career Award, Fulbright Scholar Award, and the HoAm Prize. Lee has over 350 peer-reviewed publications and over 60 international patents filed. His current research interests are quantum biology, smart optofluidic systems for the early detection of infectious diseases, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases, and in vitro neurogenesis, and solving ill-defined problems of global healthcare.

Jonathan D. Posner is the Richard and Victoria Harrington Professor for Engineering Innovation in Health in Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Family Medicine (adjunct) at University of Washington. He is a founder and the Director of UW’s Engineering Innovation in Health program that focuses on developing technical solutions to pressing challenges in health and healthcare. His research group works on a diverse set of need-driven research projects including medical devices, point-of-care in-vitro diagnostics, improved cookstoves for the developing world, and helmets that reduce the risk of concussion. He has founded two companies: VICIS focused on a football helmet that reduces the risk of concussion, and Phoresa focused on point-of-care diagnostics. He was UW Medicine’s Inventor of the Year in 2016.

Biosketch: "Born and raised in San Francisco, California, Katherine pursued a BS and MS degree in Biomedical Engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Due to a personal experience with her family member as a 7-year-old, she dreamed of having a career where she could change health outcomes. So, she tailored her graduate education toward appropriate technology with an emphasis on disease diagnostics. In 2017 her and her co-founders started the company, OmniVis. OmniVis designs field deployable technology to rapidly detect infectious diseases in under 30 minutes, anywhere in the world, to prevent wide-scale outbreaks."