Innovations in Diagnostics: Taking the Guesswork Out of Sepsis

Stefan Willemsen is a member of Sepsis Alliance Advisory Board and an Executive leader with over 20 years of experience in the IVD and Life Science Industries. Stefan currently is CEO of Covid Apollo, a consortium of healthcare-oriented investment funds led by RA Capital that funded the X-Prize Foundation Covid19 fast diagnostics challenge and seeks to invest in technologies and companies that accelerate. Simplify and democratize Covid19 and other infectious disease testing. Before, Stefan was President and CEO of bioMérieux Inc., from 2014 until 2020 leading all of Biomérieux operations in the US and the Americas region and also serving as a board member of AdvamedDx. Stefan has also worked at Roche Diagnostics as VP Head of Business Development and Program Management for custom PCR Assays. He is a lawyer by training with degrees from the University of Bonn in Germany and the George Washington University in US and an Alumni of the 2013 INSEAD Advanced Management Program.

Dr. Christine Ginocchio is VP, Global Medical Affairs, bioMérieux/BioFire, retired Professor of Medicine, Zucker School of Medicine, at Northwell, NY. Previously, she was Senior Medical Director, Division of Infectious Disease Diagnostics, Northwell Health, Research Professor, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, NY. She has 40 yr experience in diagnostics and Medical Education. She was principal investigator for 60 industry and pharmaceutical trials. Honors include: Irving Abrahams Award for outstanding research, Sarber Fellowship, PASCV Diagnostic Virology Award, ASM Research in Clinical Microbiology Award. She has 115 peer reviewed publications and has been a speaker at more than 250 National/International Conferences. She was an advisor for CDC, FDA, WHO, NIH, Biothreat/Influenze Preparedness Committees. She was President PASCV, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Clinical Virology, member of CAP Microbiology Committee, ASM Lab Practices Committee, and IDSA Research Committee. She is currently a voting member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) and IDSA Diagnostics Committee.

Cindy Hou, DO, MA, MBA, CIC, CPHQ, FACOI, FACP, FIDSA, is the Infection Control Officer and Medical Director of Research for Jefferson Health - New Jersey (JNJ) and an infectious diseases specialist. She is dually board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases. Dr. Hou has expertise in sepsis, antibiotic stewardship, and infection control. Dr. Hou is the Chief Medical Officer of  Sepsis Alliance and a member of its board of directors; she is also a medical advisor for the Sepsis Innovation Collaborative. Dr. Hou earned an M.B.A. and M.A. from Boston University, a D.O. from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, and a BS from Yale University. She has a certification in Infection Prevention and Control (CIC), is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ), and a Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS). Dr. Hou is a fellow for the American College of Osteopathic Internists (ACOI), American College of Physicians (ACP) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). 

Ambalika Tanak is a doctoral candidate in the Bioengineering department at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her research focuses on developing rapid point-of-care biosensors enabling minimal sample volume to provide accurate diagnostic outcomes in detecting infections at an early stage. Her current interdisciplinary research focuses on understanding biomolecular interactions of host immune biomarkers for the detection of sepsis. In this regard, she has 9 peer reviewed journal publications, and has received several distinguished awards for her research. Ambalika recently won the Baxter Young Investigator Award for her work on a first-of-its-kind point-of-care sepsis biosensor, which facilitates efforts to improve medical devices and treatment that could save and support patients' lives. She plans to continue working on developing innovative medical technologies to improve healthcare outcomes.

Susan Van Meter is executive director of AdvaMedDx. AdvaMedDx represents manufacturers of in vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests and technologies. AdvaMedDx member company innovations allow early detection of disease, facilitate evidence-based medicine, improve patient health and health care, and enable personalized medicine, while often lowering overall health care costs. AdvaMedDx is the only advocacy organization exclusively addressing policy issues facing diagnostics manufacturers in the U.S. and around the world. Prior to joining AdvaMedDx in 2018, Ms. Van Meter was senior vice president at the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), focused on hospital and health system policy, payment, quality and health information technology priorities.  Prior to joining HANYS she in the Center for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) Office of Legislation. Ms. Van Meter holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Villanova University and Boston University, respectively.