Advancing Human Health Through Genetics

Mr. Kleu has devoted his entire career to building commercial teams and developing strategies for various companies within the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to SNP Therapeutics, Mr. Kleu began his career with the Upjohn Company (Pfizer) where he worked in various commercial leadership roles before joining Daiichi Sankyo as an inaugural member of the management team charged with building its’ first U.S. commercial presence. Mr. Kleu served as Vice President of Sales for Daiichi Sankyo, (a global pharmaceutical company; top 20 worldwide). Mr. Kleu was a member of the executive management team that built the US Commercial division to over 3,000 employees and $3B in annual US revenue through the launch of 6 successful brands in 15 years. Over the past 5 years Mr. Kleu has worked as a Vice President for the commercial division of SyneosHealth (Nasdaq:SYNH), a fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions provider, specializing in Contract Research and Contract Commercial solutions for the pharma sector). He has partnered with a number of major companies to build and execute commercial strategies for many successful brands (i.e., J&J, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Forest Labs). While at Syneos Health Mr. Kleu has also been successful in building commercial strategies for new start-up companies by providing a variety of services from his teams to clients, (i.e., consulting, marketing, operations, compliance, legal, compensation, medical, payer reimbursement, recruiting, and training). Mr. Kleu is a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a major in Business Administration and a concentration in Marketing. Jon and his family reside in the Raleigh, North Carolina area.

Steven Zeisel, MD, PhD is the Director of the University of North Carolina's Nutrition Research Institute, a world-renowned scientist and a Kenan Distinguished University Professor in Nutrition and Pediatrics. Dr. Zeisel is internationally recognized for his research in nutrigenetics and nutrient requirements. Dr. Zeisel is the Kenan Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Nutrition in the Gillings School of Global Public Health and School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Zeisel earned his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1975, was a resident in pediatrics at Yale University from 1975–1977, and earned his PhD in nutrition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980. He served as chair of the Department of Nutrition at UNC from 1990-2005. Dr. Zeisel is the Director of the UNC Nutrition Research Institute and Director of the UNC Nutrition and Obesity Research Center (one of 12 centers of excellence funded by the US National Institutes of Health). Dr. Zeisel serves on the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal editorial board. His research team focuses on the essential nutrient choline and why there are individual differences in nutrient metabolism, using new approaches in nutrigenetics and metabolomics. Dr. Zeisel has proven that humans require choline and that this nutrient is critical for normal brain development, and for liver and muscle function. Based on his research, the US Institute of Medicine set a dietary requirement for choline in 1998. Currently, Zeisel’s team is investigating how gene misspellings alter dietary requirements, how diet can add marks to genes which turn them on an off (epigenetics), and how choline is needed for normal liver, muscle and sperm function. All of these studies have been supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health. Dr. Zeisel has authored more than 350 scientific publications and has won numerous awards including the prestigious National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Falk Award, the American Society for Nutrition’s Osborne and Mendel Award, the American College of Nutrition’s Award.

Jamie Platt is an experienced and recognized leader in clinical genomics and molecular diagnostics. After completing a PhD in Molecular Biology and fellowship as a Post-Doctoral Scholar at UC Berkeley, Jamie focused her academic and research interests toward innovation and application in clinical diagnostics. Jamie spent nearly 15 years at Quest Diagnostics, overseeing both Operational and R&D functions, beginning with Infectious Disease and ultimately initiating and overseeing Quest’s Advanced Sequencing (Genomics) program spanning Genetics, Oncology, Immunology, Infectious Disease, and Neurology. Jamie and her team developed and validated the first commercially available NGS-based diagnostic in 2006, helping to transform NGS technology from an influential research tool to a viable and powerful clinical platform. Jamie ultimately oversaw the entire Advanced Sequencing (NGS) portfolio for all of Quest Diagnostics and continued to grow the genomics business both organically and through acquisition (e.g., Athena Diagnostics and Celera). Leading the translation of NGS technology from research into clinical diagnostics, also allowed her to develop an extensive professional network collaborating on projects with high-profile key opinion leaders like George Church, Eric Topol, and Francis Collins (Director of The NIH). Jamie’s early experience in clinical NGS also led her to contribute to professional guidelines in NGS, such as CLSI MM09, NYS NGS Guidelines for Somatic Variant Detection, NIST Genomes In-A-Bottle, and the FNIH QCM Project for ctDNA (circulating tumor DNA). After leaving Quest Diagnostics, Jamie focused on helping laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, and platform (instrument) providers bridge gaps in their knowledge of genomics applications and the market landscape. Jamie has helped more than 25 laboratories achieve CLIA licensure, in addition to gaining CAP accreditation (7 laboratories), ISO 15189 & ISO 14385 certification (5 entities), NYS CLEP (2 laboratories) CE Mark (3 products), FDA Breakthrough Device Designation (2 products), and Local Coverage Determination (LCD) for CMS via Palmetto MolDx. Jamie has supported several FDA PMA and 510K submissions by NGS platform providers (Illumina and ThermoFisher) through clinical and orthogonal studies. Jamie also serves as an NGS specialized auditor for CAP (The College of American Pathologists)and is a member of the C21 (Coalition for 21st Century Medicine) Regulatory Working Group. Jamie is frequently invited as a key-note speaker, podium presenter, and workshop instructor at research and professional conferences. Her recent experience in liquid biopsy and personalized medicine is a natural extension and evolution of a career committed to enabling significant clinical diagnostic insights through genomics.

Albert Piechotta has been a category innovator, entrepreneur, executive and marketer of consumer health products for the past 25 years. He has successful track record marketing branded nutrition and consumer health products in Food, Drug and Mass, Physician Direct and E-commerce channels. He has additional experience in marketing nutrition to consumer and pharmaceutical companies in both North America and Europe. As Director of Marketing for the the Quigley corporation, he was instrumental in launching the Zinc cold remedy Cold-EEZE® into FDM and peak sales of $75MM. As chief marketing officer for Prevention Pharmaceuticals, he launched the omax3® brand into physician direct and ecommerce omega-3 channels achieving $13MM in sales in its first 18 months. As Director of Global Marketing for KD Pharma, he helped create an innovative blended ingredient platforms with clinical and regulatory substantiation targeting the North American Nutrition and Supplement market. Mr. Piechotta has helped build corporate equity for start-ups by building small teams to profitably market on-trend consumer health brands to success. His operational experience, strong strategic focus, educational approach, and experience in driving consumer demand has made him a sought-after leader in the Nutrition and supplement industry. Mr. Piechotta has an M.Ed in Corporate Development and Training from Temple University as well as an M.B.A. in Pharmaceutical and Food Marketing from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Brian began his career in the 80’s as the General Accountant for a government contractor, where he automated the accounting departments’ processes saving hundreds of hours of overtime each year. From there, he enjoyed a broad range of positions including: Registered Representative at Merrill Lynch, Trust Officer at Nations Bank, Retirement Consultant at William M. Mercer, Inc., CFO / FINOP for Triune Capital Advisors, and Supervisory Principal / Designated Principal for LPL Financial where he supervised fifty six advisors and nineteen field OSJ’s, performing supervisory office visits to ensure compliance. He has successfully guided both RIA’s and BD’s through FINRA, SEC and State of NC Audits, and has worked with over twenty start-ups. Brian also holds Series 7, 9, 10, 24, 27, 63, 65, and 82 licenses. Brian enjoys running, travelling, and trout fishing. He currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board for Faith, Hope & Love – a Christian based, after school mentoring program.

Bob Dieterle is an entrepreneur in residence with the Office of Technology Commercialization. He is a strategic technology entrepreneur and execution executive with over 25 years experience and a proven track record in leading US and International turnarounds, building technological capability, building relationships and growing corporate and early-stage ventures from the ground up; intrapreneurially and entrepreneurially. He has been at the forefront of emerging technology transformations since he was part of the first laptop development team at IBM in the mid 1990s. He has been both on the vendor and client sides of emerging technology, working in various progressive roles at IBM and Lenovo and then leading early-stage digital technology companies, most recently as CEO of MobileSmith Health. He possesses in-depth digital health IT and business knowledge in market strategy, product development, and revenue growth of cloud technologies in a startup environment or enterprise organization. Currently, Bob strategically guides early-stage technology ventures in unlocking and growing revenue, proving out innovative business models and launching new products in new markets. Bob has a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from NC State University and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

As a passionate Bioinformatician with an interest in building efficient Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) workflows, Manjot has pursued projects involving data analysis for NGS, gene expression, and metabolomic data and utilized leading-edge pipeline tools for processing in a Linux environment. Through implementing machine learning methods and regression analysis in R and Python, Manjot has developed the SNP Therapeutics algorithm for it lead Product, The Genate Test.

Dr. Saroja Voruganti, Associate Professor of Nutrition, is working on building a nationally and internationally recognized research program in nutritional genomics at UNC. A unique field, nutritional genomics seeks to identify genetic susceptibility to diseases, effect of genetic variation on nutrient metabolism and the effect of nutrients on gene expression. She has extensively investigated the interplay between nutritional and genetic factors influencing disease risk in ethnically diverse populations, especially minority populations such as American Indian, Alaska Native, Parsi Zoroastrian and Hispanic populations. Her research is focused on uncovering new connections between genetics, nutrition, and epidemiology that can lead to more accurate determination disease risk and new treatment options for metabolic diseases.

Mr. Allen is a General Partner of Coddle Creek Capital a boutique venture capital and business consulting firm engaged primarily with privately held, early-stage companies providing organizational design, strategy to market and capital raising advice with primary focus in Life Sciences and Financial Markets.

Steven Zeisel, MD, PhD is the Director of the University of North Carolina's Nutrition Research Institute, a world-renowned scientist and a Kenan Distinguished University Professor in Nutrition and Pediatrics. Dr. Zeisel is internationally recognized for his research in nutrigenetics and nutrient requirements. Dr. Zeisel is the Kenan Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Nutrition in the Gillings School of Global Public Health and School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Zeisel earned his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1975, was a resident in pediatrics at Yale University from 1975–1977, and earned his PhD in nutrition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980. He served as chair of the Department of Nutrition at UNC from 1990-2005. Dr. Zeisel is the Director of the UNC Nutrition Research Institute and Director of the UNC Nutrition and Obesity Research Center (one of 12 centers of excellence funded by the US National Institutes of Health). Dr. Zeisel serves on the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal editorial board. His research team focuses on the essential nutrient choline and why there are individual differences in nutrient metabolism, using new approaches in nutrigenetics and metabolomics. Dr. Zeisel has proven that humans require choline and that this nutrient is critical for normal brain development, and for liver and muscle function. Based on his research, the US Institute of Medicine set a dietary requirement for choline in 1998. Currently, Zeisel’s team is investigating how gene misspellings alter dietary requirements, how diet can add marks to genes which turn them on an off (epigenetics), and how choline is needed for normal liver, muscle and sperm function. All of these studies have been supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health. Dr. Zeisel has authored more than 350 scientific publications and has won numerous awards including the prestigious National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Falk Award, the American Society for Nutrition’s Osborne and Mendel Award, the American College of Nutrition’s Award.

Dr. Hoffman is the Fellowship Director & Associate Professor, Maternal Fetal Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology. She is the Medical Director of the Maternal Fetal Clinic at the Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge Colorado and is on the Medical Staff at University of Colorado Hospital, Aurora Colorado and St. Joseph Hospital in Denver Colorado. Dr. Hoffman is a co-author of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Clinical Practice Guidelines for “Maternal Mental Health: Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment Guidelines” as well as “Psychiatric medications in pregnancy.” Her clinical and research focus is investigating interventions that may be integrated into perinatal care to improve maternal and child mental health with a focus on the mechanisms by which perinatal mood disorders and perinatal stress increase the risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes and impaired maternal-child physical and mental health.

Dr. Daniel McDyer attended the University of South Florida College of Medicine and then did his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at UF Health, Jacksonville where he served as the Administrative Chief Resident. He is Board certified by the American Board of OB/GYN and is a member of the American College of OB/GYN, the Florida Medical Association and the Duval County Medical Society. He has been a member of the Clinical Governance Board of Florida Woman Care since 2013, is a member of their Compliance Committee and has previously served as their Treasurer. He also served as the Section 2 Chairman for ACOG District 12 from 2017 - 2020 and was President of the Jacksonville OB/GYN Society from 2018-2022. Additionally, he was the Clinical Innovation Officer for Carie Health from 2017 – 2019 and is Chief Medical Officer for OnCallMD, an innovative telehealth company. His professional interests include obstetrics, minimally invasive surgery, treatment of urinary incontinence, infertility, menstrual problems, optimizing nutrition and patient education. His personal interests include running, astronomy, theoretical physics and spending time with his family.

John M. Thorp, Jr. is the McAllister Distinguished Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Division Director for Women’s Primary Healthcare. He is also a Professor of Maternal and Child Health in the School of Public Health. Dr. Thorp is the Medical Director and founder of the Horizons Perinatal Substance Abuse Program. He is a fellow at both the Sheps Center for Health Services Research and the Carolina Population Center. He directs the generalist obstetrics and gynecology group of UNC. Professor Thorp helped start the Global Women’s Health Division and launch the first obstetrics and gynecology residency in Sub Saharan Africa. The Horizons perinatal Substance Abuse Program, considered world class, and one of the few programs treating both women and children. He pioneered medication-assisted treatment for opiate use disorders in pregnancy. He is also the medical director and co-founder of the Reply practice, which uses fertility awareness education as its primary approach to women’s health. Dr. Thorp is widely published in the obstetric and medical literature and is considered an expert on obstetrical practice in general, with particular research interests in substance abuse issues surrounding women’s health, the epidemiology of preterm birth, and pelvic floor disorders. His research discoveries include that routine episiotomies predispose to rectal injury, progestins can prevent preterm birth, magnesium has neuroprotective effects for babies born prematurely, and late preterm babies can benefit from corticosteroids.

Isis Trujillo-Gonzalez, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Nutrition Research Institute (NRI). Her passion is the study of nutrition and brain health. She received her doctorate in Biomedical Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She concluded her postdoctoral fellowship at the NRI, studying the role of choline during pregnancy in the developing brain. She demonstrated that choline is critical for neural progenitor cell proliferation. Dr. Trujillo's research focuses on understanding how choline status during pregnancy impacts the baby's brain development. Her research includes the role of choline and one-carbon metabolism in neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegeneration.