Innovative Engineering for Health Committee

The Innovative Engineering for Health (IEH) Committee makes funding decisions on all the IEH Awards.

Members

Dr William R Brody
President of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Committee role: Chairman

Dr Joni Catalano-Sherman
Senior Director, Emerging Technologies, Johnson & Johnson Innovation
Committee role: Independent member

Professor Kevin Cleary
Professor, Sheikh Zayed Institute for Paediatric Surgical Innovation
Committee role: Independent member

Dr Kevin Johnson
Venture Partner – Life Sciences, Index Ventures
Committee role: Independent member

Dr William Rymer
John G. Searle Professor of Rehabilitation Research, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
Committee role: Independent member

Dr Niilo Saranummi
Director, Medical Engineering Laboratory, VTT, Finland
Committee role: Independent member

Professor George Whitesides
Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University
Committee role: Independent member

Dr Stephen Wong
Chairman for Department of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Houston
Committee role: Independent member

Professor Jackie Ying
Head, Nanostructured Materials Research Laboratory, Singapore
Committee role: Independent member

Dr Meher Antia
Business Analyst, Technology Transfer, Wellcome Trust
Committee role: Secretary

Biographies of the independent members

Dr William Brody is an acclaimed physician-scientist, entrepreneur, and university leader, joined the Salk Institute on March 2, 2009 after 12 years as president of The Johns Hopkins University. Renowned for his achievements in biomedical engineering, Dr. Brody has over 100 publications and two U.S. patents in the field of medical imaging, and has made contributions in medical acoustics, computed tomography, digital radiography, and magnetic resonance imaging. These contributions have led to his recognition by numerous national and international organizations. Dr. Brody is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the American College of Radiology, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the American Institute of Biomedical Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2010, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Radiological Society of North America for his contributions to medical imaging science.

Dr Joni Catalano-Sherman is a Senior Director, of Emerging Technologies at Johnson and Johnson Innovation. She leads and coordinates academic relations and technology transfer activities with leading Universities and research centers in Israel and Europe as an integral part of Johnson and Johnson's London Innovation Center. Dr Catalano-Sherman holds a PhD in cell biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Dr Kevin Cleary is a research professor and engineer, he leads the Institute’s interdisciplinary bioengineering team with a focus on improving visualization in paediatric surgery through medical devices and robotics. As part of that work, he will modify devices designed for adult surgery to work better in the smaller bodies of children.Embracing the unprecedented opportunity to work side by side with physician researchers and other engineers, Dr Cleary seeks to expand and improve the application of robotics and other devices in paediatric surgery. Dr Cleary believes the fledgling field of paediatric robotics can advance faster thanks to the unique multidisciplinary set up of the Institute. Dr Cleary comes to Children’s National from Georgetown University Medical Center’s Department of Radiology where he was director and professor at the Imaging Science and Information Systems Center. He is the co-editor of the book “Image-Guided Interventions: Technology and Applications.” Dr. Cleary received his doctorate from the University of Texas in Austin and was an NSF-sponsored post-doctoral fellow in robotics in Japan.

Dr Kevin Johnson has been with Index Ventures since 2003, most recently as Venture Partner heading the Life Sciences practice in London. He is currently CEO of PanGenetics, an Index portfolio company based in The Netherlands, and has the role of Venture Advisor within Index Ventures while he holds the CEO position of PanGenetics. Prior to taking up his position at Index, Dr Johnson was a member of the start-up team, Chief Technology Officer and board member at Cambridge Antibody Technology plc. He led the team that produced HumiraTM, the first fully human therapeutic antibody. Dr Johnson was also involved in the successful flotation of CAT on the London Stock Exchange. As an academic researcher, his early career involved investigations into the molecular genetics of infectious disease organisms, vaccine development and the development of protein expression systems.

Dr W. Zev Rymer is currently the John G. Searle Professor of Rehabilitation Research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. He received his undergraduate and medical training from the University of Melbourne in Australia, graduating with honors in Medicine in 1962. In 1989, he assumed the position of Research Director at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), accepting an endowed chair, and in 2008 he became Vice President for Research at the RIC. He currently holds faculty appointments in the departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Physiology, and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern, with the rank of Professor in each. He is also President of the Rehabilitation Institute Research Corporation. He is the Director of an Infrastructure Network Center (R24) funded by the Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research of the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)/National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR) as well as Director of the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for a center entitled “Machines Assisting Recovery from Stroke” (MARS), which began in November 2002.His research interests include the neural control and biomechanics of movement in human and animal models, and the disturbances of voluntary movement and their origins in neurologically disabled subjects, particularly those suffering from spinal cord injury and stroke.

Dr Niilo Saranummi has worked at VTT since 1975 advancing through different positions starting as a research scientist and from 1982 onwards as director of VTT’s Medical Engineering Laboratory with a staff of 70 full time employees. In 1991-94 he served as President of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering, IFMBE (www.ifmbe.org) and in 1994-97 as President of the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM). In 1999 he was appointed to lead an ad-hoc committee with the charge to look into the possibilities of establishing a European umbrella organization that could cater for the needs of the European MBE community. In 2003, in the inauguration meeting of the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering and Science (EAMBES, www.eambes.org) he was elected interim President of it (2003-2004). He chairs the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, IAMBE (2009-2012).He was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions of Information Technology in Biomedicine, T-ITB (2002-2007). He is area editor of IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering (2008 - ). He chaired IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society’s Technical Committee on Information Technology for Health (2007-9).

Professor George M. Whitesides is a professor of chemistry at Harvard University. Whitesides’s scientific contributions come from such diverse areas as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), materials and surface science, microfluidics and nanotechnology.He is best known for his insights into surface chemistry, understanding how molecules arrange themselves on a surface. The discovery laid the groundwork for advances in nanoscience that led to new technologies in electronics, pharmaceutical science and medical diagnostics. His recent research interests include energy, the origin of life, and science for developing economics.Professor Whitesides is the author of more than 950 research papers and holds over 50 patents. He has mentored more than 300 scientists who now hold influential positions in academia, industry, and government. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious National Medal of Science (1998) and Priestley Medal (2007). Beyond his scientific research, Professor Whitesides is also active in public service. He has participated in many evaluations addressing issues related to science and technology around the world.Native of Kentucky, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1960 and a Ph.D. from the Caltech in 1964. He was a faculty member at the MIT from 1963 to 1982 and then at Harvard since 1982. He is the Woodford L. & Ann A. Flowers University Professor and a Director of Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology at Harvard University

Dr Stephen Wong is the Founding Chairman for Department of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute. He holds the John S. Dunn, Sr. Distinguished Endowed Chair in Biomedical Engineering; he is also a Professor of Radiology, Pathology, Laboratory Medicine, Neurology, and Neurosciences, the Associate Director of Translational Research at Methodist Cancer Center, and Chief of Medical Physics and Chief Research Information Officer at The Methodist Hospital. In addition, he serves as the Founding Director of the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Center for BRAIN (Bioinformatics Research and Imaging in the Neurosciences) and Founding Director of the Center for Modeling Cancer Development at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute. He also holds a dozen of other academic posts across institutions in Texas Medical Center as well as overseas universities and medical schools. An internationally acclaimed bioengineer and imaging scientist, Dr. Stephen Wong has led teams that developed production automation for first very large scale integration (VLSI) 1MB computer memory chip and the largest online brokerage trading system, and contributed to the first hospital-wide digital radiology image management system in US academic medical centers.

Professor Jackie Ying is the Head of Nanostructured Materials Research Laboratory. She is also an Executive Director of the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Agency for Science, Singapore. Dr. Ying is a leader in her research field of nanocatalysts. Her laboratory has been responsible for several novel wet chemical and physical vapor synthesis approaches that create nanostructured materials with exceptional size-dependent characteristics. In particular, the ... engineering of surface reactivity, microstructure, and thermal stability for nanocrystalline and nanoporous systems has been the focus to target towards the materials needs in the production of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the efficient use of energy and resources, and the control and prevention of environmental pollution. Dr. Ying’s research is interdisciplinary in nature, with a theme in synthesis of advanced inorganic structures for catalytic, membrane, ceramic and biomaterial applications. She is the Materials Engineering and Sciences Division Director at the AIChE. Dr. Ying has previously worked at AT&T. She is on the Advisory Board of U.S. Genomics and Altair Nanotechnologies where they are commercializing some of her catalyst discoveries. Dr. Ying is a Member of Advisory Board at Seraphima Ventures LLC. She served on the Board of Directors of Alexander von Humboldt Association of America. Dr. Ying was most recently admitted in May 2005 to Germany's Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina. She distinguishes herself as being the youngest member elected member of the world's oldest natural sciences academy. Dr. Ying is on the International Advisory Board of Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- und Werkstoffforschung Dresden (Germany), University of Queensland Nanomaterials Centre (Australia), National Research Council Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences (Canada), Institute of Materials Research & Engineering (Singapore), and is an Honorary Professor of Chemistry of Jilin University (China). She is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT.