Ulysses Balis
University of Michigan
Dr. Balis is Associate Professor and Director, Clinical Informatics Co-Director, Division of Pathology Informatics, University of Michigan.
He received dual B.S. degrees in Computer Engineering and Biology from Duke University in 1987. He attended medical school at the University of South Florida and was awarded an M.D. in 1991. He completed residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at the University of Utah during the period 1991-1996, followed by postdoctoral fellowship training under the Whitaker Foundation B.E.R.E. Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard University Health Sciences and Technology Program (1996-1998), with continued research in tissue engineering at Harvard's Center for Engineering in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital during the period 1996-2000.
Dr. Balis is a member of numerous professional societies including the Association for Pathology Informatics of which he was a founding member, served as Vice-President and is currently President-Elect. While at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), he developed and implemented a barcode tracking system for Anatomic Pathology Workflow. This patent is held by MGH. Dr. Balis has numerous publications in peer reviewed journals and has served as an invited speaker nationally and internationally in the area of informatics.
Jim Deeds
Novartis
Jim Deeds is a Senior Technical Leader in the Oncology Targets and Biomarkers group at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR). He is responsible for the development of pathology imaging and information systems for research oncology pathology in Cambridge and technical leader for NIBR's effort to integrate their global oncology research pathology sites. Prior to his work at Novartis, Jim spent 10 years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (MPI) where he established the companys molecular pathology laboratory and was lead scientist for the identification and characterization of markers of cervical cancer aggressiveness. He led the clinical validation, assay development and product launch support for the metastatic melanoma marker Melastatin and was lead scientist for the clinical validation of slide-based pharmacogenomic markers for Velcade. His group was responsible for the development and implementation of quantitative imaging methods for all slide based pre-clinical and clinical studies at MPI. He is a graduate of MIT (1989) where he earned a degree in Brain and Cognitive Science.
Michael Feldman
University of Pennsylvania
Michael Feldman's professional interests revolve around the development, integration and adoption of information technologies in the discipline of Pathology. One of his main areas of interest within this broad discipline has been in the field of digital imaging. He has been exploring pathology imaging on several fronts including interactions between pathology/radiology (High resolution MRI imaging of prostate cancer), development and utilization of computer assisted diagnostic algorithms for machine vision in prostate and breast cancer (Collaboration with Dr. Anant Madhabushi Rutgers) and automated immunohistochemical scoring of TMA (Collaboration with Dr. David Foran at UMDNJ). His newest area of investigation is the use of multispectral imaging for the analysis of multicolor immunohistochemistry and immunoflourescence and the development of a quantitative system for scoring and analyzing at a cytometric level, multicolor immunostaining on surgical pathology slides.
James A Thompson M.D. Ph.D., CEO and Medical Director
Pathogenesys, LLC
James A Thompson M.D. Ph.D. currently serves as a Senior Hematopathologist at Genoptix Inc., Carlsbad, CA; Medical Director of Ambry Genetics, Aliso Viejo, CA; and President and Medical Director of Pathogenesys LLC, San Juan Capistrano, CA. Dr. Thompson previous served in both Management and Clinical positions at USLabs, Irvine, CA; Oncotech, Tustin, CA; Impath, Los Angeles, CA; and Meyer Pharmaceuticals, Irvine, CA. He currently holds a Volunteer Faculty position at UCIrvine College of Medicine and served as the Directors of Hematopathology and Immunotherapy Laboratories at UCIMC. Dr. Thompson holds a B.S., M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in biological and medical sciences from the University of California, Irvine and underwent Internship, Pathology Residency and Molecular Pathology Fellowship at Stanford University and Hematopathology Fellowship at UCIrvine College of Medicine.
Doug Tkachuk
Objective Pathology
Doug Tkachuk is an Anatomical pathologist working at University Health Network as hematopathologist; Associate Professor in Department of Lab Medicine and Pathobiology at University of Toronto; and President and Founder of Objective Pathology, Inc. Doug was the first to clone and characterize human delta T-cell receptor with Dr. Tak Mak Ontario Cancer Institute. He was also the first to clone and characterize MLL gene in leukemia with Dr. Mike Cleary, Stanford University. He has several patents in F.I.S.H for translocation detection in cancer with Drs. Dan Pinkel and Joe Gray, Lawerence-Livermore Lab, Livermore CA (patents currently licensed by University of California to Vysis Corp.) Doug has also authored two books on hematology, the most recent being “Wintrobes Atlas of Clinical Hematology”, published by Lippincott 2007.
