About Mimetics

Dr. Adam Leman

Dr. Leman has over 10 years of working in the fields of yeast and cell cycle biology. Adam earned his B.S. in Molecular Genetics from the University of Rochester and received his Ph.D. From Drexel University College of Medicine in Molecular Biology and Genetics in 2011. Following his doctoral studies, Adam joined Steve Haase’s lab at Duke University. Adam’s focus on integrated systems biology and quantitative approaches to understanding gene regulatory network in the cell cycle has been extremely successful. He has extended his work to developing new approaches in cell cycle research and to understanding key gene regulatory networks governing other processes. Adam has a fascination with brewing and microbiology which has lead to a longstanding interest in fermentation and microbial production methods.

Dr. Ashlee Valente

Dr. Ashlee Valente earned her B.S. and M.S. in Bioinformatics at Rochester Institute in Technology. Dr. Valente completed her doctoral studies at Duke University in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. Ashlee’s doctoral thesis work focused on the development of statistical models to improve computational pre-processing of transcriptomics and proteomics data. During her postdoctoral work, Ashlee worked extensively on applied biomarker discovery. She has extensive experience building predictive models for clinical outcomes in infectious disease and biopolymer exposure in transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data. Dr. Valente brings with her an enthusiastic pursuit of leveraging this type of data via quantitative systems biology to advance understanding of biological mechanisms.

Dr. John Hogenesch is a Chronobiologist who received his BA from USC and completed his PhD in Neuroscience at Northwestern University in Chicago. John’s postdoctoral research was in functional genomics at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation. John spent time as Professor and Vice Chair of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania. Was Interim Director of the Institute of Biomedical Informatics for the Perelman School of Medicine as well as the Associate Director of the Penn Genome Frontiers Institute. Currently Hogenesch is at the University of Cincinnati in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology where his work is focused on the mathematical modeling of the mammalian clock genes from the genomic and computational perspective.

Dr. Michael Resnick is a Geneticist who received his BS from Northwestern University at Chicago and received his PhD from the University of California at Berkley. Resnick did his postdoctoral work with the Medical Research Council in London and Oak Ridge Laboratories in Tennessee. Mike has held faculty positions at the University of Rochester, the National Institute for Medical Research in London and has been a Lab Head at NIEHS since 1979. Resnick has authored over 170 peer reviewed papers, 50 reviews and book chapters, holds 7 patents, he has received “Best Paper of the Year” at NIEHS 5 times, in 2008 he was awarded “Scientist of the Year” by NIEHS, and in 2012 was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Mike Resnick is currently the head of the Chromosome Stability Group and holds a secondary appointment in the Immunity, Inflammation and Disease Laboratory at NIEHS. Resnick’s research has focused on but not been limited to:

• Genetic and structure function relationships in replication, repair and mutation avoidance
• Sources of double-strand breaks, genetic consequences and mechanisms of repair
• Organizations and evolution of p53 tumor suppressor master regulatory network and consequences of mutations
• The role of the p53 network in inflammatory responses
• Environmental agents and conditions that impact genome stability
• Mechanisms of DSB repair and coordination of end-processing to generate single-strand DNA
• Expansion and Characterization of p53 targets as well as human variability in p53 associated stress responses

Soren Hojfeldt Lund is a Marketing and Business professional who received his Masters of Science in the field of Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. Soren also received his MBA from Heriot-Watts University at Edinburgh Scotland in 2001. Mr. Lund has over 30 years experience in the biotech industry working with the industry leader, Novozymes. Soren’s experience in sales and marketing management, management of technical service laboratory activities, customer service and logistics is exceptional and his work in the field of biotech unparalleled. Mr. Lund brings with him a worldview having spent extensive time living and working everywhere from the US to Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, India and Malaysia.

Dr. Duccio Cavalieri is a Geneticist who received his PhD from the University of Pavia, Italy in 1998. He began his postdoctoral work at the University of Catania, Italy and finished at Harvard University, USA. From 2001 to 2004 Duccio was a Harvard Genomics Fellow, Principal Investigator and Group Leader for the Yeast Comparative Genomics Group with the Bauer Laboratories & Molecular and Cellular Biology Department (Harvard University). While at Harvard he pioneered the application of functional genomics to yeast population genetics. Currently, Cavalieri is an Associate Professor for Biotechnology at the University of Florence. He also works as the Department Head and Group Leader for the Comparative Genomics Unit in the Department of Computational Biology at Fondazione E. Mach (CRI). Duccio is a leader in the application of computational biology to complex agricultural systems and the connection between nutrition, the micro biome, and human health. Cavalieri’s work has delved into the evolutionary biology of the “holo biome” and the complex network of symbiotic interactions linking the micro biome and the host (including immune system regulation). Cavalieri’s Computational Genomics research unit at CRI, integrates biological, bioinformatics and statistical expertise necessary for the development of systemic approaches, integrating information from DNA-Microarrays, Next Generation Sequencing, Metagenomics, Proteomics and Metabolomics.

Dr. Rickard Faith is a Software Engineer who received his MD from the University of South Florida, Tampa. Dr. Faith went on to receive a PhD in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. In the late 1990’s Rik, and another colleague, designed and implemented the groundbreaking distributed X11 Server. This advanced technology enabled national labs to collaborate over long distances and was the first of its kind. Dr. Faith has also been a critical component in the development of high performance storage. He brought this skill to NetApp where he worked for years helping establish their roadmap and products. Rik has joined the Mimetics team bringing with him over 15 years of industry experience in both start-ups and established companies. Rik’s expertise lies in algorithm design, performance analysis, reliable storage, and virtualization.