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OpGen Team

Douglas White, CEO

Douglas White, CEO, OpGen, Inc. Doug joined OpGen as Chief Executive Officer in June of 2010. Doug brings 25 years of experience in the in vitro diagnostics market serving in multiple senior executive roles. His roles have included the leadership and development of commercial organizations and partnerships at BG Medicine, QIAGEN, Digene, Bayer, and Chiron Diagnostics. Doug’s extensive experience in the Molecular Diagnostics market played an integral role in the development of high value, clinically relevant, technologies, systems and assays throughout his career.

Prior to joining OpGen, Doug served as Executive Vice President and General Manager for BG Medicine, a life science company focused on the development and commercialization of novel diagnostics tests. Prior to BG Medicine Doug was Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Americas, and Chair of the Americas Management Counsel at QIAGEN. At Digene he served as the Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations, where he was responsible for all commercial activities in the Americas and Asia Pacific in addition to the global product management organization. In addition, Doug held several executive positions in the diagnostic industry, including Vice President of U.S. Sales and Marketing, Vice President of Global Product Management, Nucleic Acid Diagnostics, at Bayer Diagnostics, Vice President, Marketing, for Chiron Diagnostics as well as different management roles in sales, market development, strategic and tactical marketing through his career at Chiron and Abbott Diagnostics.

Doug received his BA in Political Science from Washington College.

Eric Winzer, CFO

Eric Winzer, Chief Financial Officer Eric joined OpGen as Chief Financial Officer in June 2009. Eric brings almost 30 years of experience in addressing diverse financial issues including raising capital, financial reporting, investor relations, banking, taxation, mergers and acquisitions, financial planning and analysis, and accounting operations. Eric is responsible for all financial functions at the Company.

Prior to joining Opgen, Eric served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company developing targeted therapeutics for oncology. Prior to Avalon, Eric was with Life Technologies Corporation (formerly Invitrogen Corporation), a provider of life science technologies for disease research and drug discovery, where he served as Senior VP and Chief Financial Officer, Executive Sponsor for Life’s ERP implementation, and as the VP of Finance. Previously held positions also include Eric’s tenure at Life Technologies Incorporated, where he assumed increasing responsibility as Chief Financial Officer, Secretary and Treasurer, and additionally held various financial positions at Genex Corporation. Currently, Eric serves as director and audit committee chair at Cytomedix, Inc.

Eric received his B.A. in Economics and Business Administration from McDaniel College and an M.B.A. from Mount Saint Mary’s University.

Tom Ross, Sr. VP, Commercial Operations

Tom has extensive experience in all elements of commercial operations and has over 25 years of successful sales and marketing leadership in the Life Science and Clinical Diagnostics markets. Most recently Tom served as Chief Commercial Officer at Predictive BioSciences, a molecular diagnostics laboratory with a focus on Bladder and Prostate cancer. Prior to Predictive BioSciences, he was the Vice President of North America Medical Diagnostics Sales at QIAGEN/Digene Corporation. Prior to Digene, Tom held several senior leadership roles at Life Technologies and Cambrex. In addition to his sales and marketing experience, Tom held management positions in Manufacturing Operations at Life Technologies and Cambrex.

Tom has a B.S in Business Administration from The Citadel.

Vadim Sapiro, CIO

Vadim Sapiro, CIO Vadim joined OpGen in December, 2011 with responsibility for leading the development of the Company’s bioinformatics applications, software, databases and information technology operations. Prior to OpGen Mr. Sapiro was senior vice president at SAIC-Frederick overseeing the Information Systems Program for the National Cancer Institute at Frederick with responsibility for information technology, scientific computing and bioinformatics. Among Mr. Sapiro’s projects were technical program management and operations for the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG™), the cancer Human Biobank (caHUB) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Prior to SAIC, Mr. Sapiro was vice president for information technology with the J. Craig Venter Institute. Mr. Sapiro is active in the regional and national technology and research communities, having served on many life sciences and biotech focused advisory boards and review committees.

Mr. Sapiro holds a B.S. in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland.

Richard Moore, MD, PhD., Chief Scientific Officer

Richard Moore, MD, PhD, Vice President, Diagnostic Systems Rich joined OpGen as the Vice President of Diagnostic Systems in October 2008. Rich brings to the company significant experience in product development and molecular infectious disease diagnostics. Rich currently leads Systems Integration and Assay Development efforts for infectious disease products.

Prior to joining OpGen, Rich served as the Director of Research, Technology Development, and Systems Integration for the Diagnostic Systems unit of Becton Dickinson (BD). At BD, Rich was involved in the development of several instrumented diagnostic systems in including ProbeTec ET and Viper. Prior to BD, Rich worked in the point of care diagnostics group at IGEN, now BioVeris.

Rich obtained an MD and a PhD in Cellular Immunology from University of Maryland at Baltimore and a BS in Chemical and Nuclear Engineering from University of Maryland, College Park.

Nick Stiso, VP, Manufacturing Operations

Nick Stiso, Vice President, Manufacturing Operations Nick joined OpGen as Vice President of Manufacturing Operations in July 2011 after working with the OpGen team as a Consultant on the development and scale-up of their production processes. He brings more than 25 years of experience to the position, with a strong track record in the development and management of successful Manufacturing and Support Operations for Medical and Biotech Devices, Life Science systems and IVD products. He has successfully driven Continuous Improvement efforts at a number of companies to achieve Operational Excellence, or the ability to deliver the highest quality products in the most efficient, cost-effective manner.

Prior to joining OpGen, Nick operated his own consulting business, focusing on providing both large and small companies with expertise in product and manufacturing development. He has held executive level positions in Development and Manufacturing Operations at a number of organizations such as Biosite Diagnostics (now part of Inverness), Accumetrics, Syva Co (now part of Behring), GeneOhm Sciences (now part of BD), MetriGenix (now part of Axela) and Miles Laboratories (now part of Bayer) and was a key contributor to the successes of products at these companies.

Nick earned a BS in Chemistry from Georgetown University and a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Michigan State University.

Larry Wellman, VP, Human Resources

Larry Wellman, Vice President, Human Resources Larry joined OpGen as Vice President, Human Resources in July 2008. Larry is responsible for talent acquisition, retention, rewards, performance management and development strategies. Larry brings to the company extensive experience leading organizations through rapid and significant growth both domestically and internationally. His commitment to talent development ensures the continual improvement and growth of both the individual and the organization.

Prior to joining OpGen, Larry served as Vice President, Human Resources for Digene Corporation (now Qiagen), a medical diagnostics firm that develops, manufactures and markets proprietary DNA and RNA tests for the detection, screening and monitoring of human diseases. During his tenure, the company grew from $17 million to over $200 million in revenue, significantly increasing the manpower demands to support that intense growth. Prior to Digene, Larry was Director, Human Resources for two established companies that opened new operations in the mid-west, Bear Creek Corporation, and prior to Bear Creek, Atlas Editions. Larry’s breadth of “people” experience is assembled from diverse industries including, biotechnology, high-tech, service-based and manufacturing environments, each contributing to his solid understanding of employee relations, resource planning and human capital management.

Larry holds an MBA in Finance and a BS in Human Resources, both from Indiana University.

“Physical map and genetic map still should be emphasized as an important parts of a reference genome. Recent progress in technologies, such as the whole genome mapping high-throughput platform offered by OpGen, now provide the tools for efficient physical map construction. This independent technology provides not only the validation of the genome sequencing, but also provides the large-scale chromosome structure information that cannot be detected by sequencing. We applied this technology as an assistant tool of the NGS to assemble bacterial, plant and large mammalian genome with reliable accuracy and generate the sub-chromosome graded assembly. The experience in these genome assembly projects shows that the physical map should be the standard for any reference genome to be assembled in further.”

Xun Xu, Ph.D.

Deputy Director at BGI

This independent technology provides not only the validation of the genome sequencing, but also provides the large-scale chromosome structure information that cannot be detected by sequencing.

Xun Xu, Ph.D.
Deputy Director at BGI

“Our research focuses on a wide variety of projects from viruses and microbes to crop plants and mammals. Many of our projects are de novo assembly projects, where, without a closely related genome sequence, it can be difficult to critically assess the results. We often combine different sequencing technologies, and we are finding that regardless of the sequencing platform, error correction, or assembler used, OpGen’s Whole Genome Mapping identifies misassemblies and provides the highest quality de novo assembly for further research.”

Matthew Clark, Ph.D.

Team Leader, Sequencing Technology Development

The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC), Norwich, UK

OpGen’s Whole Genome Mapping identifies misassemblies and provides the highest quality de novo assembly for further research.

Matthew Clark, Ph.D.
Team Leader, Sequencing Technology Development

“We adopted OpGen’s Argus System as the most advanced way of adding Whole Genome Mapping to improve whole genome sequences. We combined Whole Genome Maps with sequence assemblies to correct errors and misassemblies in bacterial genome sequences as part of our program in the Human Microbiome Project. We are now moving the technology into larger genome projects.” 

George Weinstock, Ph.D.

Associate Director  The Genome Institute at Washington University

We combined Whole Genome Maps with sequence assemblies to correct errors and misassemblies in bacterial genome sequences. This is part of our program from the Human Microbiome Project.

George Weinstock Ph.D.
 Associate Director 
The Genome Institute at Washington University

“Certain things you just have a tough time answering with de novo sequencing. And assembly doesn’t always work out as sweetly as you would like. So definitely for any whole genome de novo project that people are insistent on closing we would do a Whole Genome Map optically as well as de novo assembly. And the amount of money you would save is in the thousands of dollars in finishing.”

Stefan Green

Director of DNA Services

University of Illinois Chicago Research Resources Center (UIC RRC)

Definitely for any whole genome de novo project that people are insistent on closing we would do a Whole Genome Map.

Stefan Green
Director of DNA Services