Dawn Mattoon, PhD

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Dawn Mattoon is the Chief Executive Officer at Mercy Bioanalytics. She brings nearly 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry and has held leadership positions in R&D, Strategy, and General Management for leading companies including Invitrogen, Life Technologies, Thermo Fisher, and Cell Signaling Technology. Most recently Dr. Mattoon served as the Senior Vice President for Clinical Diagnostics at Quanterix, where she led the development and commercialization of the company’s first two FDA authorized diagnostic tests for COVID-19, and received Breakthrough Device designations from the FDA for diagnostic tests in Alzheimer’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. She has developed and commercialized products across a range of proteomic and genomic technologies, and is thrilled by the opportunity to bring the highly innovative Mercy Halo diagnostic test portfolio to patients.

Dr. Mattoon earned her Ph.D. in Genetics with a focus in signal transduction from Yale University, where she also completed her postdoctoral fellowship.

Toumy Guettouche, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Toumy Guettouche is the Chief Scientific Officer at Mercy BioAnalytics.  He brings nearly 20 years of experience in the genomics, proteomics, and molecular diagnostics space. Before joining Mercy BioAnalytics, he held various leadership positions in R&D in the areas of women’s health, oncology, genetics and single cell technology at Roche Sequencing, Grail, and Scale Biosciences. Under his leadership, Toumy’s teams have successfully launched numerous products both in the areas of automation, target enrichment, and single cell analysis, and he has contributed to multiple LDT launches and US FDA IVD applications.

Dr. Guettouche earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Potsdam, Germany, and a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Miami’s School of Medicine. He held a faculty position in the Department of Genetics at the University of Miami. Toumy has co-authored numerous studies in high-impact journals and holds patents in the fields of genomics and proteomics.

Michael Smith

Vice President of Quality, Regulatory, and Clinical Affairs

Michael Smith is the Vice President of Quality, Regulatory, and Clinical Affairs at Mercy BioAnalytics. He brings over 15 years of experience in the in vitro diagnostic industry with experience in product development, manufacturing, quality assurance, regulatory affairs, and clinical affairs. Most recently, Michael served as the Director or Regulatory and Clinical Affairs at MDC Associates, where he led a team of regulatory specialists and clinical researchers to support dozens of companies in their efforts to bring new products to the market. He has worked with the FDA on 15 premarket applications, both 510(k) and PMA throughout his career covering a multitude of diagnostic technologies.

Joseph Sedlak

Scientific Founder, Advisor

Joseph is the Scientific Founder of Mercy BioAnalytics. Joseph graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a degree in biomedical engineering and entered the M.D./Ph.D. program at Harvard Medical School to pursue his mission to improve the lives of those with cancer. Since arriving at Harvard, Joseph focused on reducing the mortality and morbidity of cancer by seeking clinical opportunities to help care for cancer patients and studying in several research labs across Harvard and MIT. These research experiences included modeling the evolution of cancer resistance to small molecules, studying immunotherapy resistance, and biomarker assay development.

Informed by his experiences working with patients and the body of ongoing cancer research, Joseph critically assessed early detection as the largest unmet need in the field of oncology. The majority of early-stage, localized cancers can be cured by surgery alone. However, as cancer progresses and distant metastases have developed, surgery is rarely curative.

After gaining insight into the challenges of early cancer detection and seeing the need for detecting cancers earlier go unmet, Joseph dedicated his efforts to improving cancer screening by co-founding Mercy BioAnalytics. In July 2020, following a two year authorized leave of absence from Harvard Medical School, Joseph returned to the M.D./Ph.D. program. M.D./Ph.D. expected in 2025.

Joseph Sedlak

Co-Founder

• Co-founder and Harvard Medical School MD/PhD candidate, expected 2025
• Committed to early cancer detection with training atMGH/MIT/Harvard
• Scientific inspiration for Mercy

Emily Winn-Deen, PhD

Sr. Vice President, Diagnostics Strategy

Dr. Winn-Deen (B.S., Chemistry, Lehigh University and Ph.D., Chemistry, Boston University) brings over 40 years of experience developing diagnostic and genomics assays using novel technologies to her position at Mercy BioAnalytics. She had numerous peer-reviewed publications, and is an inventor on 38 issued US patents.

Recent executive experience includes serving as chief strategy officer and advisor for Mesa Biotech, a start-up company focused on delivering simplified molecular diagnostic solutions for point-of-care applications, vice president of research services at AltheaDx, and vice president for diagnostics product development at Illumina. Previously she was vice president for both strategic planning/business development and genetics/oncology R&D at Cepheid and senior director of the genomics business area at Roche Molecular Systems. Dr. Winn-Deen’s molecular experience also includes directing the high throughput genotyping laboratory at Celera Genomics, developing the Applied Biosystems cystic fibrosis assay, and directing diagnostics R&D at Oncor, Inc. Her earlier career included development of clinical chemistry reagents, urinalysis test strips, and immunoassays for several Siemens Healthcare business units. For the past 10 years she has also owned and operated RxDx Advisors, a diagnostics and life sciences consulting company, where she focuses on helping clients formulate their corporate product development and market entry strategies.

Dr. Winn-Deen has served as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on funded grants from the NIST Advanced Technology Program, the National Cancer Institute, and the US Department of Defense, and on grant review committees for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the National Cancer Institute.

Professional, federal-level volunteer activities have included serving on the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society (SACGHS) (2003-2006), the Centers for Disease Control’s Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) (2007-2011), and on the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute’s (CLSI) Expert Panel on Molecular Methods (2010-2019). In these roles she has co-authored 10 whitepapers and consensus practice guidelines for clinical molecular testing. She was also a panel member, advisor, and grant reviewer for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Early Detection Research Network (EDRN)(1999-2002, 2009) and a member of the NCI Special Emphasis Panel on Clinical Assay Development for Cancer Diagnosis (2012-2014).

Dr. Winn-Deen has received a number of professional awards including the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Northern California Section’s Harold Van Remortel Service Award (1993), their Outstanding Contribution to Clinical Chemistry through Science and Technology Award (2006), and AACC’s Outstanding Speaker Award (1997). Other awards include Behring Diagnostics’ Customer Acceptance Award (1981) and Behring Award (1985), and Applera Corporation’s Inventor Award (2001). In recognition of her career achievements, she was elected as a Fellow in the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry in 2000.

Diane Marcou

Chief Financial Officer

Diane Marcou is an independent financial consultant who provides interim financial leadership to early-stage companies. Working with start-up companies for many years, Ms. Marcou has applied her strategic planning and leadership capabilities to identify, implement and improve business systems, create operating plans and support growth. She has helped her clients raise hundreds of millions of dollars in equity and debt financing, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions and strategic partnerships.

Marcou has provided financial and strategic advisory services to a number of venture-backed technology and life sciences companies, including Immunome, Fractyl Laboratories, TARIS Biomedical, Cytrellis Biosystems, Boston Microfluidics, T2 Biosystems and Topera Medical. For more than 25 years working across private and public sector organizations, she has consistently built effective teams, strengthened relationships with investors, partners, customers and employees, secured funding and negotiated critical business agreements.

Tim Membrino

Vice President of Portfolio Management

Tim Membrino is the Vice President of Portfolio Management at Mercy BioAnalytics. He has over 30 years of experience in product development and project management across various industries including in vitro diagnostics, medical devices and genomics and proteomics products. Most recently Tim served as V.P. Program & Portfolio Management at Quanterix where he led growth of the Program Management Office to deliver program and project leadership across the breadth of the business portfolio. He has extensive experience executing product development initiatives within regulated environments with deep knowledge of FDA 21 CFR Part 820 Quality Systems including product development consistent with Design Controls.

Tim earned a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a MS degree in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and is PMP and Agile Scrum Master certified.

Stanley Lapidus

Chairman

• 30+ years successfully inventing and commercializing early cancer detection diagnostics
• Founded Cytyc, which revolutionized the Pap smear. Acquired for $6 billion
• Founded Exact Sciences which revolutionized early detection of colorectal cancer. Exact’s market capitalization has exceeded $22 billion

Paul Blavin

Co-Founder & Vice Chairman

• Serial entrepreneur and successful value investor

• Over 16 years, built and led a successful $2bn+ private investment partnership

• Founder of several highly successful social ventures

• Sole Funder of Mercy ($5.5 million) inception to November 2020

Paul Meister

• Retired Chairman of the Board of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. and Vice Chairman of Fisher Scientific International, Inc. prior to Fisher’s merger with Thermo

• President of MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated from 2014-2018

• Chairman and CEO of inVentiv Health (now Syneos Health), a leading provider of commercial, consulting, and clinical research services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries from 2010-2014

• Earlier in his career, Mr. Meister served in a number of executive leadership positions at Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., The Henley Group Inc., and AlliedSignal Inc. (now Honeywell International, Inc.)

Dr. Myla Lai-Goldman

Dr. Myla Lai-Goldman is a co-founder and Chairperson of GeneCentric Therapeutics, a precision medicine company in Durham, NC, where she previously served as CEO and President.  She is also a venture partner with Hatteras Venture Partners and managing partner of Personalized Science, LLC, a diagnostic consulting company that she founded in 2008.  In addition to GeneCentric, Dr. Lai-Goldman serves on the boards of West Pharmaceutical Services, Akoya Biosciences, Qvella Corporation, and NovoPath. 

Dr. Lai-Goldman spent more than 18 years at Laboratory Corporation of America, Holdings (LabCorp), the last 10 years as Executive Vice President, Chief Medical and Chief Scientific Officer.  She served on LabCorp’s Executive and Management Committees, with strategic and operations responsibilities for 3 major genomic laboratories comprising more than 700 people.  During her tenure at LabCorp, she led all clinical, scientific and medical activities, including the introduction of more than 400 clinical assays.  Her experience includes the development of partnerships, licensing and acquisitions. She is a recognized speaker and author on understanding and overcoming the barriers to test adoption. 

Dr. Lai-Goldman received her BS from the University of Pennsylvania and MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.  She is board-certified in anatomic and clinical pathology.  She brings her unique perspective as a physician, researcher, corporate executive and board-member to her work. 

Sonja Hoel Perkins

• Managing Director of The Perkins Fund, has been investing in high technology for over 30 years

• Youngest General Partner in Menlo Ventures’ history. Awarded the Menlo Ventures “Investor of the Year Award” six times in seventeen years

• Invested in several startups that have achieved multi-billion-dollar valuations including Acme Packet, F5 Networks and McAfee Associates

• Worth Magazine has ranked her among the 100 Most Powerful People in Finance in the World

• Invested in over 60 companies throughout her VC career

Barry Berger, MD

Lead Medical Advisor

Dr. Berger was the Chief Medical Officer for Exact Sciences Corporation for 20 years, and developed advanced DNA based tests for colorectal cancer screening. Prior to Exact Sciences, Dr. Berger’s clinical career was spent at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare. Dr. Berger is the past chairman of the Advisory Committee on Clinical Laboratories for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is a currently serves on the executive committee of the Massachusetts Society of Pathologists and the Policy Committee of the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable. He has served as a panelist for the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania where he also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Immunology with Dr. Peter Nowell. Following a medical internship at Boston University Hospital, and two years as a general medical officer in the U.S. Air Force, he served as a resident and chief resident in Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Randy Schekman, PhD

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Randy Schekman is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He studied the enzymology of DNA replication as a graduate student with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University. His current interest in cellular membranes developed during a postdoctoral period with S. J. Singer at the UC Diego. Among his awards are the Gairdner International Award, the Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with James Rothman and Thomas Südhof. He served as the Editor of the Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology and as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the NAS and eLife. Beginning in 2018, Schekman has served as the Scientific Director of “Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s Disease” a major philanthropic effort organized along with The Michael J. Fox Foundation to identify molecular and cellular mechanisms in the initiation and progression of Parkinson’s Disease (https://parkinsonsroadmap.org).

Schekman’s laboratory investigates the mechanism of vesicular traffic in the secretory pathway in eukaryotic cells. Currently the lab investigates the mechanism of biogenesis of extracellular vesicles including how small RNAs are sorted for secretion in exosomes and the means by which these vesicles are internalized and function in target cells.

Alberto Gutierrez, PhD

Regulatory Affairs

• 35+ year career at the FDA

• FDA Director, Office of In Vitro Diagnostics

• Expert in preclinical and clinical testing of in vitro diagnostics

David Ransohoff, M.D.

• Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Pioneer in clinical trials to evaluate molecular biomarker discovery

• First “Rules of evidence” to evaluate diagnostic tests (NEJM 1978), cited 1500 times; methods papers in Science, Nature Reviews

• Guidelines-making: advisor to US Preventive Services Task Force

• Co-PI on Exact Science clinical study

Steven Skates, Ph.D.

• Associate Professor of Medicine (Biostatistics), Harvard Medical School
• Over 25 years and co-author of 50+ peer-reviewed articles on the early detection of ovarian cancer
• Trial Management Committee of UKCTOCS, the world’s largest prospective ovarian cancer screening trial (215,000+ women over 15 years)
• Co-inventor of ROCA, Risk of Ovarian Cancer Algorithm

Christine Berg, M.D.

• Senior author on five early cancer detection randomized control trials. Project officer for the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO), a randomized control trial with 155,000 participants and the National Lung Screening Trial with 53,454 participants
• 40 years as a practicing physician. Research focus on cancer screening
• Chief, Early Detection Research Group, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (2004-2012)
• Author, over 130 Peer Reviewed Original Scientific Publications, 10 Publications, New England Journal of Medicine