Mining the methylome for early indicators of cancer

Lisa Alderson is the CEO of Adela. Lisa is a mission-driven entrepreneur dedicated to improving patient care and advancing the adoption of precision medicine. She has extensive experience creating and scaling innovative, high-growth businesses at the intersection of technology and healthcare with a focus in genomics, digital health, SaaS, telehealth and molecular diagnostics. Previously, she co-founded and served as the CEO of Genome Medical, the leading genomic care delivery company enabling broad-based access to genomic medicine. She is also a co-founder of Clarified Precision Medicine. Prior, Ms. Alderson served as the Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Invitae (NYSE: NVTA), a genetic information company, and was part of the start-up team at Genomic Health Inc. (Nasdaq: GHDX). She was previously president and CEO of Crossloop, (acquired by Nasdaq: AVG), president of Cinema Circle Inc., (acquired by Nasdaq: GAIA) and the former manager of strategic planning at The Walt Disney Co. She has an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Colorado State University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.

Dr. Scott Bratman is a physician-scientist known for developing novel liquid biopsy methods with immense clinical impact. Following graduate and medical school training at Columbia University, Scott conducted groundbreaking postdoctoral research at Stanford University that advanced the practice of mutation detection within cell-free DNA. As Principal Investigator at University of Toronto and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Scott's research program continued to produce fundamental discoveries in cell-free DNA biology, technologies, and applications. Scott holds a BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and an MD/PhD from Columbia University.

Dr. Daniel De Carvalho is the scientific co-founder at Adela.  Daniel is a world-leader in cancer epigenomics research and since 2012 has led a research group at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and the University of Toronto. He is pioneering the use of cancer epigenetics combined with advanced computational approaches for developing novel diagnostic tools and applications. Daniel holds a PhD from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and completed his postdoctoral training under the supervision of the pioneer in DNA methylation, Dr. Peter Jones, at the University of Southern California.

Daniel has published over 65 high profile research papers, many of those featured in prestigious scientific journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Medicine, and Cancer Cell, and was an invited speaker to over 120 talks worldwide, including prestigious venues such as the Opening plenary lecture at AACR annual meeting. For his scientific contributions, Daniel has received numerous awards including the AACR-Waun Ki Hong Award, Canadian Cancer Society Bernard and Francine Dorval Prize and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Early Career Award in Cancer. He also received the Canada Research Chair in Cancer Epigenetics, the Helen M Cooke Endowed Professorship and was elected membership in the 2019 cohort of The Royal Society of Canada.

Dr. Anne-Renee Hartman was the acting CMO of GRAIL and previously Vice President of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs. While at GRAIL, she created the largest clinical genomics program to develop, validate and demonstrate clinical utility for a pan-cancer early detection blood test. Prior to GRAIL, Anne-Renee was the Senior Vice President of Clinical Development at Myriad Genetics, where she led the development of several commercialized diagnostics in oncology. Anne-Renee was previously an Assistant Professor of Medicine at The Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She completed her oncology fellowship at Stanford where she helped set up the cancer genetics clinic. Anne-Renee holds a BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University, an MD from The University of Michigan and completed her residency in Internal Medicine at The University of Chicago.

Priscilla Huang spent much of her career at Merck in various finance and business roles including Controller of Merck Vaccines Division and Finance Lead of Merck Biosimilars.  She also spent time at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. where she led the finance organization.  Priscilla holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania.

Karla Jarvis previously served as a legal consultant at 5AM Venture Management, LLC., Ensoma, Inc., Genuity Science and Vor Biopharma.  Her former roles include SVP, General Counsel & Secretary of The Rockport Group and SVP General Counsel & Secretary of Clarks Americas, Inc. 

Karla is a Director of The Forsyth Institute and the Leadership Board of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  She also serves as a mentor for MIT Venture Mentoring Service and a mentor and judge for MassChallenge. Karla holds a BA in Biology from Clark University, a MPH from Boston University, and a JD from New England School of Law.

Betsey has been in healthcare for over 20 years and has extensive experience commercializing novel products in diagnostics and oncology.  She was an early member of the GRAIL commercial team, where she was at the forefront of evaluating and defining the market and stakeholder requirements for the novel category of blood-based cancer early detection products, and establishing GRAIL's product roadmap. She served as the commercial lead on the core team for GRAIL's multi-cancer early detection test. Previously at Genentech, she worked on the launch of several novel oncology therapeutics in a market analytics and marketing capacity. Betsey holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in BioPsychology from Tufts University.

Dr. Alan Williams has a history of proven and deep expertise in product development, and in scaling clinical laboratory operations, from his senior executive roles at Somalogic, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Ion Torrent), and Affymetrix. Alan has developed, launched and scaled-up multiple industry-defining products. Most recently as Chief Development Officer of SomaLogic, where his responsibilities included oversight of assay and software development, data science, bioinformatics, information technology, and lab operations, he delivered proteomic analysis at scale. Prior to SomaLogic, he developed the first bench top high throughput NGS platform at Ion Torrent and the first transcriptome-on-a-chip platform at Affymetrix, complete with sophisticated bioinformatic and data science solutions.

Alan earned a bachelor’s degree in plant biology from the University of California, Davis and a doctorate in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from the University of California, Riverside.