Alie J. Buckmire PhD, Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Alie J. Buckmire has 17 years of experience in Healthcare Technology optimization, Medical Product Development and clinical Wellness Operations. Tactical and strategic experience in C-Suite consulting for healthcare administrators, leading large cross-functional medical tech implementation teams, and exceeding aggressive revenue targets with double-digit YOY revenue growth across a variety of corporate (Fortune-10), academic and entrepreneurial settings. His trust-based leadership style inspires diverse global teams, suppliers, and stakeholders to deliver their best work across all organizational levels. He earned a B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology, an M.S. in Physiological Sciences and a PhD in Neuroscience.
Uwe Müller PhD, VP of Product Development ~ Emeritus
Dr. Uwe Müller has 32 years of experience in industrial research and product development that includes positions as CSO (NeoClone), EVP for Product Development (Banyan Biomarkers), VP for Applied Science (Nanosphere), Technology Director (Corning), and Director of Advanced Technology (Vysis, now Abbott Molecular). Leading national and international teams, his R&D activities have focused on DNA and protein-based diagnostics, including DNA probes, arrays and immuno-assays. He received his B.S. from Justus Liebig University (Germany), and M.S. and Ph.D. from Kansas State University. After his postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dr. Muller joined the faculty at East Carolina University School of Medicine as Assistant and later tenured Associate Professor. He has authored/co-authored 57 research publications in peer-reviewed journals, co-edited a book, and holds 11 issued US patents.
Ramesh Nayak PhD, Inventor
Dr. Ramesh Nayak has had a 30-year academic and company research career in immunology and neurology. Ram has held positions as Research Associate Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Arizona; Staff Investigator, Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston; Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Tufts University College of Medicine; Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School; and doctoral student in the Department of Neurochemistry, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square London. His expertise enabled him to lead the discovery of our technology process and drive the intellectual property process.
Melita Ball, Director of Regulatory & Quality
Melita Ball has over 30 years’ experience in regulatory compliance and quality systems for medical device and diagnostic companies. She is a globally recognized leader in her field and brings expertise in regulatory compliance, quality system development, computer software validation (CSV), supplier qualification and management, quality auditing, regulatory and quality training, CAPA, project management, and management responsibility. She has worked with large and small companies over her career including companies such as Third Wave Technologies (Now Hologic), Ventana Medical Systems, Intuitive Surgical, Ethicon Endo Surgery, Medtronic, Stryker, Boston Scientific, Siemens Healthineers, and many others.
Betty Weaver, CPA, Controller
Betty Weaver provides financial management. She has extensive experience in public accounting, including several years as principal of her own accounting firms in Arizona and Texas. Betty provides tax, review, and consulting to both public and early-stage private companies.
Board Members
Conrad Plimpton, Board Chair
Conrad Plimpton concurrently serves as Chair of Sustainable Botanicals International Inc., Chair of Plimpton & Company, and partner of CDI Global. Conrad & his wife are majority owners of INOLEX, their 125-year-old family owned skincare business brought to IPO as a pharma biotech company in the late 1960's by Goldman Sachs. He was also founding Chair and major shareholder Exide Electronics that Alex Brown (now Deutsche Bank) took public; sold to INVENSYS in 1997 for $600 million. Along with Exide Electronics he had several other business aggregating $1 billion revenues. He also founded of NeuroHealth Foundation in Zug, Switzerland to sponsor Multiple Sclerosis research at the University of Zurich, where interferon was discovered. He is an active Desert Angel in Tucson, Arizona.
Marie Wesselhoft, Co Founder and Board Vice Chair
Marie Wesselhoft has spent the last fifteen years involved in the southern Arizona bio start-up community. Currently President of ZelosDx and a Mentor-in-Residence at the University of Arizona, Marie previously served as the Director for the University of Arizona Center for Innovation Business Incubator. During her 20-year career at Baxter, she held several senior management positions including General Manager of the diagnostic business unit. At Baxter she launched multiple $25-50 million diagnostic product lines. Early in Marie’s career she was a hospital laboratory director for one of the Humana facilities in the Chicago healthcare market. She earned a B.S. in Medical Technology from the University of Wisconsin, attended the University of Chicago Business School and the University of Arizona McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship.
John Grant PhD, Board Member
Dr. John L, Grant currently is the principal of Lemnos Advisory, LLC, a boutique consultancy which serves clients such as operating companies, transaction advisors, investment banks and venture investors. Dr. Grant is a NACD Certified Director and serves on two startup BODs, three non-profit BODs, is an advisory board member at two startups and works with BioTools Innovator (Los Angeles) as a mentor. Additionally, he provides strategic support to CXO Advisors (Phoenix), an impact-focused incubator. He also invests in early-stage companies and is on the Investment Committee of Purple Arch Ventures (Chicago) and invests through angel groups such as TCA-LA (Los Angeles), Gopher Angels (Minneapolis) and Chemical Angels Network (SoCal). Previously, he was an executive at 3M and led global strategy and external business development in several 3M divisions within 3M’s Healthcare and Industrial Business Groups. In these roles, he led and participated in 25 acquisitions, divestitures and minority corporate venture investments in advanced materials, filtration, medical devices, biotechnology, industrial adhesives, and enterprise software. His educational background consists of an MBA from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and a PhD from Northwestern University.
Patrick Watkins, Business Advisor
Former senior exec at Roche Pharmaceuticals, Roche Diagnostics, & Roche Diabetes Care divisions of the Roche Group. Led integration of Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. as Chief Financial Officer of Roche Tissue Diagnostics. Prior to Roche served as Chief Executive Officer of decision-support & strategy formulation software development & strategy consulting firm Think Tools AG, publicly-listed on the Swiss stock exchange. Senior management positions at Johnson & Johnson in the pharmaceuticals division.
Dan Martens
Dan Martens is currently the Market Manager at Snap-On Business Solutions where he
oversees the marketing strategies and execution aimed at delivering the high standards and
innovative solutions that Snap-on Tools is known for. With a robust background in creating and
implementing sustainable strategies across diverse markets, he brings a wealth of experience
predominantly in the healthcare industry. His career is marked by a steadfast commitment to
placing patients at the forefront of every solution developed. He has a proven history in guiding
organizations through critical inflection points.
Scientific Advisory Board
Linda Restifo, MD, PhD
David A. Stumpf, MD, PhD
David A. Stumpf, MD, PhD
Linda L. Restifo, MD, PhD, has a lifelong passion to understand the genetics of brain disorders. Currently Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Cellular & Molecular Medicine at the University of Arizona (UA), she earned her MD and PhD (Genetics) degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. After additional training in neurology (Ha
Linda L. Restifo, MD, PhD, has a lifelong passion to understand the genetics of brain disorders. Currently Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Cellular & Molecular Medicine at the University of Arizona (UA), she earned her MD and PhD (Genetics) degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. After additional training in neurology (Harvard-Longwood Residency) and developmental neurogenetics (Brandeis University), she launched a research program at UAz that began with a basic-science emphasis and gradually moved toward translational medicine. Her team demonstrated the extraordinary similarity of genes essential for normal brain development in humans and fruit flies, and the utility of primary cultured neurons as cellular bioassays for drug discovery and neurotoxicity screening. In collaboration with medical geneticists, she participated in gene identification for early-onset epilepsy and other severe disorders using whole-exome sequence data. Other innovative collaborations led to software development for 2D neuron-image analysis and a microfluidic system for dissociation of neural tissues. Her research funding has come from NINDS, NICHD, John Merck Fund, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Autism Speaks, Jerome Lejeune Foundation, and TechLaunch Arizona. As an educator, Dr. Restifo starts with the principle that “the molecule is not the disease,” emphasizing the importance of clinical diagnosis and disease classification alongside studies of cellular and molecular pathogenesis. She has supervised the research projects of graduate students in Neuroscience, Insect Science, and Genetic Counseling, as well as many undergraduates. In 2019-20, Dr. Restifo was a Visiting Scientist at Tucson-based Critical Path Institute’s Consortium for Parkinson’s Disease, to share her genetics expertise and to learn about clinical trial design and analysis. Through UA, she developed an innovative community-engagement program, Genes on Screen, to help the general public understand advances in genetic technology for healthcare. Dr. Restifo joined the Board of Directors of BIOSA, the BioIndustry Organization of Southern Arizona, in 2023, and was subsequently elected Secretary. She is working to expand membership and events that support local biotech/biopharma companies.
David A. Stumpf, MD, PhD
David A. Stumpf, MD, PhD
David A. Stumpf, MD, PhD
Dr. David Stumpf is Professor Emeritus of Neurology at Northwestern University, and President of Woodstock Health Information and Technology. Dr. Stumpf had a successful clinical and research career in neurology, including Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chica
Dr. David Stumpf is Professor Emeritus of Neurology at Northwestern University, and President of Woodstock Health Information and Technology. Dr. Stumpf had a successful clinical and research career in neurology, including Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. In 2005, Dr. Stumpf accepted the position of Medical Director of UnitedHealthcare, Illinois, where he became the national Medical Director for Physician Engagement and Improvement, and Senior Vice President for Clinical Data Strategies at the corporate level, where he worked with physicians and their professional societies on plans to help them improve quality and reform payment methods. As a medical informaticist, he worked with the National Quality Forum (NQF and HITAC), the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (PCPI), and was a part of several early-stage healthcare information companies.
Stefania Mondello, MD, MPH, PhD
Stefania Mondello, MD, MPH, PhD
Stefania Mondello, MD, MPH, PhD
Dr. Mondello is a physician scientist (MD, MPH, PhD) with a sub-specialty in critical care medicine and extensive experience in clinical neurotrauma, biomarker research and statistical analysis methods. She have worked at Banyan Biomarkers (Florida, USA), Inc. as Director of Clinical Research for 5 years leading the pioneering effort whi
Dr. Mondello is a physician scientist (MD, MPH, PhD) with a sub-specialty in critical care medicine and extensive experience in clinical neurotrauma, biomarker research and statistical analysis methods. She have worked at Banyan Biomarkers (Florida, USA), Inc. as Director of Clinical Research for 5 years leading the pioneering effort which contributed to the development of new biomarkers of brain injury being used in clinical studies worldwide and recently approved by FDA. Currently Dr. Mondello has an appointment at the University of Messina (Italy) as Tenure-track Assistant Professor, and at the Oasi Research Institute-IRCCS (Troina, Italy) as Biostatistical Manager and Research Director of the Biomarker Development Program. She is spending most of her clinical and research career analyzing and studying novel biochemical markers for TBI and other neurological disorders in clinical studies as well as in animal models. Her experiences in industry and academia bring a unique skill set combining the best of two different worlds.
Daniel Kantor, MD, FAAN
Stefania Mondello, MD, MPH, PhD
Stefania Mondello, MD, MPH, PhD
Daniel Kantor, MD, FAAN practices neurology in Coconut Creek, Florida. His professional pursuits include symptomatic treatment of MS, headache in MS, patient-centered neurologic care, medical ethics, and medical education. He is a principal investigator in multiple MS clinical trials (phase 1-4). He is founder of the Medical Partnership 4
Daniel Kantor, MD, FAAN practices neurology in Coconut Creek, Florida. His professional pursuits include symptomatic treatment of MS, headache in MS, patient-centered neurologic care, medical ethics, and medical education. He is a principal investigator in multiple MS clinical trials (phase 1-4). He is founder of the Medical Partnership 4 MS (MP4MS) and Chief Medical Correspondent for MSWorld. In addition, Dr. Kantor is a member of the Florida NeuroAlliance, and an active member of the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation Healthcare Advisory Board and the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America Healthcare Advisory Council. After receiving a B.A. (English -- Literary Theory) and B.S.E. (Computer Science & Engineering) from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Kantor received his M.D. from the Columbia University Medical Center – Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Medical School Collaboration for International Health and Medicine. He interned at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Cooper University Hospital and trained in neurology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.