Baltimore Innovation Week 2017

Dr. Abigail McElhinny joined Personal Genome Diagnostics as Senior Vice President, Research & Development and Operations in May 2016 from Ventana Medical Systems (Roche Tissue Diagnostics), where she held a number of different roles of increasing responsibilities. At Ventana, Abigail held the position as Vice President of Assay and Reagent Development where she built and led Research & Development teams with the goal of developing new assays for the BenchMark and next generation platforms. Dr. McElhinny represented Ventana on the pivotal PD-L1 Blueprint initiative, and successfully oversaw key scientific projects critical to the business, while her organization doubled in size. Abigail previously served as Senior Project Leader for CDx lifecycle projects, working with regulatory, clinical affairs, quality, and biostatistics teams to build the necessary processes and requirements to support pharma clinical trials and obtain FDA approval for CDx assays, including Ventana’s ALK (D5F3) CDx IHC assay and HER2 Dual ISH assays. Abigail received her Ph.D. from Northeastern University in Immunology and Biochemistry, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Arizona in Cell Biology, focused on molecular mechanisms of cardiac muscle development, cardiomyopathies and muscle remodeling.

Dan Rodricks is an award-winning columnist for the Baltimore Sun newspapers, and host of the Roughly Speaking podcast. He was previously the host of Midday, a daily talk show on WYPR FM 88.1, the NPR station in Baltimore, and the host of "Rodricks For Breakfast" on WMAR-TV, "The Dan Rodricks Show" on WBAL Radio , and a long-time contributor of features and commentary to WBAL-TV.

Gary is a Data Engineer at Arena.io. He dabbles in UI and knows way too much Clojure. He has applied FP languages (currently OCaml) and approaches to problems for over 6 years in Baltimore.

Robert Lord is the Co-Founder and President of Protenus, an analytics platform that leverages artificial intelligence to detect data breaches in healthcare. Protenus protects the nation’s top healthcare systems, ensuring trust for tens of millions of patients, and was named the 2016 International Association of Privacy Professionals’ Privacy Innovator of the Year.

Robert is a sought-after speaker and commentator in the fields of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, healthcare analytics, and data privacy. He has been invited to speak at premier industry conferences like the HIMSS17 National Conference, to brief at the U.S. Senate, and to provide insight to national, state, and local leaders on cybersecurity preparedness. His insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Forbes, The Baltimore Sun, and a wide array of other publications.

Robert is a Fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology and teaches courses on entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins. He has been named to the Baltimore Business Journal’s “Tech 10” and to Becker’s Hospital Review’s “Healthcare Entrepreneurs to Know.”

Before co-founding Protenus, Robert was an MD candidate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Robert received his A.B. in Social Studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard University.

In November 2015, Stacia became the creator and producer of Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City, a radio and podcast series that tells intergenerational stories of place and memory in Baltimore City. Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City is part of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR)’s 2015 Finding America: Localore project and is produced in partnership with WEAA 88.9.

Brad Hennessie is the CEO of NextStep Robotic Inc., a company whose portable robotic ankle exoskeleton is being developed as the first ever treatment option to reverse foot drop in stroke victims. Foot drop, which occurs in a wide range of neurological and orthopedic conditions, is recognized as the inability to lift the toe during normal walking. He has been working with the inventors of this technology for 8 years, managing multiple grants with Drs. Macko, Roy, and Forrester. He started with the team as a single study coordinator and quickly grew into a leadership role over the past few years, helping manage the day-to-day tasks and long term goals for the Maryland Exercise and Robotics Center of Excellence (MERCE). MERCE is a ~$7M/year research organization originally founded by Dr. Richard Macko that is part of the Baltimore VA Medical Center and the Department of Neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Brad’s conception of the business model and commercialization plan led to the team’s successful TEDCO MII Phase I/II submission and attracting their first external investor.

Since transitioning out of the robotics lab and starting full time with NextStep Robotics, he has directed an engineering team with Dr. Gil Blankenship at the Maryland Development Center to create the first prototype of the portable ankle robot.

Brad’s early development as a leader was shaped by his 8 years in the Maryland Army National Guard where he learned the importance of having confidence in the quality of a product by being a parachute rigger.

Gabriel is a digital tech evangelist, community builder, and people connector. He is also the co-founder of AudioStaq, a publishing and monetization platform for podcasters. Gabriel is a contributor to Technically Baltimore and former Editor in Chief at BaltimoreGamer.com

Natalie D. Eddington, PhD, FAAPS, FCP, is dean of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP) and a professor of pharmaceutical sciences. She is also executive director of University Regional Partnerships for the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB).

Dr. Eddington is a nationally known expert in drug delivery and pharmacokinetics. Her research focuses on various medications used in the treatment of cancer, epilepsy, arthritis, and drugs of abuse and on understanding the role of biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics in elucidating the underlying mechanisms important in optimizing drug therapy. 

Under Dr. Eddington’s leadership, the School of Pharmacy has established a number of centers and programs including the FDA-supported Maryland Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (M-CERSI), which is a collaborative agreement with the FDA to promote innovation in support of the development and evaluation of safe and effective products. Dr. Eddington has designed numerous international regulatory courses for clinicians and scientists from South Korea, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, and Japan on the United States’ drug development process and the FDA regulatory infrastructure surrounding medication and device development. Most recently, under Dr. Eddington’s leadership, the School has launched a transformational pharmapreneurism initiative, which seeks to position the School’s world class faculty, its wonderful students, and exceptional staff to achieve their career aspirations and address our nation’s health care, research, policy, and societal needs.