About Our Team
The Mercy Story
The kernel of Mercy BioAnalytics was sown when Paul Blavin, financier and philanthropist, met a brilliant freshman enrolled in the Blavin Scholars Program at the University of Michigan. That young man was Joseph Sedlak.
With Paul’s support, Joseph graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a degree in biomedical engineering, entered Harvard Medical School, and along the way became Paul’s adopted son. Through his studies at labs across Harvard and MIT, Joseph’s interest was piqued when he recognized the largest unmet need in oncology was the early detection of cancer.
As a young scientist comfortable with new concepts, such as nanotechnology and single cell analysis, Joseph developed the novel idea on which he founded Mercy BioAnalytics with Paul in 2018: using single extracellular vesicles for early cancer detection. The company leverages Paul’s business savvy and connections with Joseph’s scientific curiosity in its mission to improve the lives of patients suffering from cancer.
Paul and Joseph have gathered around them a stellar group of advisors and colleagues with decades of experience and success in cancer detection and diagnostics who share their mission.
The Mercy Story
The kernel of Mercy BioAnalytics was sown when Paul Blavin, financier and philanthropist, met a brilliant freshman enrolled in the Blavin Scholars Program at the University of Michigan. That young man was Joseph Sedlak.
With Paul’s support, Joseph graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a degree in biomedical engineering, entered Harvard Medical School, and along the way became Paul’s adopted son. Through his studies at labs across Harvard and MIT, Joseph’s interest was piqued when he recognized the largest unmet need in oncology was the early detection of cancer.
As a young scientist comfortable with new concepts, such as nanotechnology and single cell analysis, Joseph developed the novel idea on which he founded Mercy BioAnalytics with Paul in 2018: using single extracellular vesicles for early cancer detection. The company leverages Paul’s business savvy and connections with Joseph’s scientific curiosity in its mission to improve the lives of patients suffering from cancer.
Paul and Joseph have gathered around them a stellar group of advisors and colleagues with decades of experience and success in cancer detection and diagnostics who share their mission.
Leadership
Paul Blavin
Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer
Joseph Sedlak, MD PhD
Expected 2023
Co-Founder, Chief Scientific Officer
Laura Bortolin, PhD
Co-Director of Research & Development
Daniel Salem, PhD
Co-Director of Research & Development
Emily Winn-Deen, PhD
Sr. Vice President, Diagnostics Strategy
Anthony Couvillon, PhD
Sr. Scientist, Head of Antibody Discovery
Chris Sedlak
Research & Development Engineer
Britt Derrien
Executive Assistant
“If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.”
We are humbled and grateful to have locked arms with a world-class group of scientists, clinicians and diagnostic business leaders, all passionate and determined to save lives by detecting cancer early when it is most curable.
Board of Directors
Stanley Lapidus
Chairman
Paul Meister
Sonja Hoel Perkins
Paul Blavin
Joseph Sedlak
Strategic Advisors
Ted Snelgrove
Sr Executive Advisor
Barry Berger, MD
Chief Medical Advisor
Ellen Goldberg
Marketing
Floyd Taub, MD
Sr Executive Advisor
Alberto Gutierrez, PhD
Regulatory Affairs
Clinical Collaborators
Beth Karlan, MD
Douglas Levine, MD
Charles “Chip” Landen, MD
Bo Rueda, PhD
Amy Bregar, MD
World Leaders in Clinical Trials
World renowned advisors with over 100 years of combined experience designing and conducting the most prominent clinical trials for the early detection of cancer.
David Ransohoff, MD
Steven Skates, PhD
Christine Berg, MD
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead
Unparalleled Innovation.
Real collaboration.
Join Mercy BioAnalytics on our lifesaving mission to detect cancer early when it is most curable
Paul Blavin
CEO & Co-Founder
Paul is the co-founder and CEO of Mercy BioAnalytics. He began his career in 1986 as an investment banker with Citibank and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. He then served as the President of First Mercury Financial Corporation, a publicly-traded insurance company. He also co-founded and managed a private investment partnership – PWB Value Partners, L.P. – which began with three investors and $3.2 million under management. Over 14 years, the business grew to more than 80 investors and approximately $2.0 billion, consistently outperforming the S&P 500 Index, net of all fees and expenses.
Paul was born and raised in Southfield, Michigan just outside of Detroit. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with High Distinction with a BBA in Accounting from the University of Michigan, and earned an MBA at Harvard Business School.
Paul’s primary philanthropic focus is youth life transformation for those who need it the most and are least able to help themselves. Paul and Amy, his wife of 29 years, have immersed themselves in the following programs:
- Blavin Scholars – Programs at the University of Michigan and Northern Arizona University which provide holistic, wrap around support to youth who have experienced foster care to achieve their dreams of a post-secondary education and a better life. The Blavin Scholars Programs have supported over 100 scholars thus far with a graduation rate of approximately 95%.
- Freehab – A LA-based free, residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation center with up to 100 18-25 year old women in residence. In the latter parts of their residency, each client is provided high-quality vocational training to enable them to gain employment and establish successful careers.
- Thrive Scholars – An elite post-secondary education opportunity for the most ambitious students (poor and almost all of color) in America’s lowest-performing public schools.
- Anti-Recidivism Coalition – A wraparound support and career services organization for men and women recently released from incarceration, and a national leader in criminal justice reform advocacy.
- Mully Children’s Family – A self-sustainable non-profit, empowering life transformation opportunities for abandoned children/orphans in Africa.
In 2015, Paul began an effort to harness the power of exceptional art to inspire hope, compel action, and ignite lasting impact. He is the Executive Producer of The Hunting Ground, an exposé on the epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses, and Lady Gaga’s “Til It Happens to You” a Grammy, Emmy, and Oscar nominated original song written by Lady Gaga and Diane Warren who’s accompanying music video has more than 44 million views. Additionally, Paul is an Executive Producer of the heartwarming, inspirational animal rescue documentary Harry & Snowman and Mully, the inspiring documentary of Dr. Charles Mully “Father of the World’s Largest Family” with over 13,000 rescued children. Paul is also the founding financier of One Community, a film and television co-financing company that harnesses the power of storytelling to inspire and encourage positive change in the world.
Joseph Sedlak, MD, PhD (expected 2023)
CSO & Co-Founder
Joseph is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer 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. Joseph is now on an authorized leave of absence from Harvard Medical School and plans to return to his fifth year in the M.D./Ph.D. program after seeing Mercy’s technology reach patients in prospective randomized clinical trials.Joseph Sedlak, MD, PhD (expected 2023)
Co-Founder
- Co-founder and Harvard Medical School MD/PhD candidate, expected 2023
- Committed to early cancer detection with training atMGH/MIT/Harvard
- Scientific inspiration for Mercy
Laura Bortolin, PhD
Co-Director of Research & Development
Laura is Co-Director of Research and Development at Mercy BioAnalytics. Laura graduated from the University of British Columbia with a first-class Honors degree in Zoology and has a Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from Harvard Medical School. After obtaining her Ph.D., Laura worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where she developed technologies for the detection and identification of biological warfare agents. She was part of the original team that developed the CANARY biosensor which has been fielded in various locations. Laura also led an effort to develop fast, easy, and fieldable sample-preparation technologies and devices to purify biowarfare agents from complex environmental samples.
Before joining Mercy BioAnalytics, Laura worked in the McCarroll laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where she developed a rapid and easy nucleus-extraction method for single-nucleus transcriptomic analyses of human brain samples.
Laura is the author of multiple patents and is leveraging this experience in tech dev and innovation to develop Mercy BioAnalytics’ novel approaches for the detection of early-stage cancer from liquid biopsies.
Daniel Salem, PhD
Co-Director of Research & Development
Daniel is Co-Director of Research and Development at Mercy BioAnalytics. Daniel graduated summa cum laude from the University at Buffalo with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. While at the University at Buffalo, Daniel was a recipient of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. In 2013, he pursued graduate studies in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering Practice in 2015. Daniel completed his Ph.D. work in the Strano Research Group where he worked on the design and development of optical biosensors using single-walled carbon nanotubes. Over the course of his graduate work, he deployed these novel biosensors for biopharmaceutical characterization, food/water contaminant monitoring, and biomarker detection. Inspired by his graduate work, Daniel is driven to develop new technologies that enable early disease diagnosis. As a member of the Mercy BioAnalytics team, he will dedicate his efforts to the design of a blood-based screening test for early-stage cancer.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.Anthony Couvillon, PhD
Sr. Scientist, Head of Antibody Discovery
Anthony is a Senior Scientist, Head of Antibody Discovery at Mercy Bioanalytics. After graduating from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, Anthony joined the laboratories of Dr. Christopher Carpenter and Lewis Cantely at the Harvard Medical School/Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center where he worked as a research associate. This marked his foray into the world of cancer signaling and metabolism and Anthony credits his overall interest in cancer biology to time spent working with a number of incredible scientists during these formidable years. Work in the Carpenter and Cantley labs motivated him to enroll in a Ph.D. program at Vanderbilt University where he studied under the tutelage of Dr. John H. Exton, a pioneering HHMI investigator who introduced Anthony to GPCRs, their role in disease and neuronal function. After graduation, Anthony returned to Boston and the Carpenter lab where he studied the role of Rho family GTPases in immune cell development and function. Frustrated by a lack of quality reagents to study many of the targets he was interested in, Anthony joined Cell Signaling Technology, Inc. where he spent over a decade generating and validating antibodies against key signaling proteins involved in cancer and other diseases. During this time, Anthony played an integral role in a number of industry-wide antibody validation initiatives working with antibody manufacturers, global research scientists from both academia and biopharma, non-profit organizations, research institutes, and government agencies to set standards by which all antibodies should be characterized. This work has led to a deep understanding of the pros and cons of various affinity-reagent technologies and how different strategies can be applied to successfully develop antibodies and similar reagents to even the most challenging targets. Anthony most recently worked at Abcam, where he oversaw programs dedicated to raising antibodies and other affinity reagents to historically difficult targets. He is thrilled to join the Mercy team and hopes to use his years of experience in the antibody industry to identify or develop reagents that enable multiple generations of early detection assays.Chris Sedlak
Research & Development Engineer
Chris is a Research and Development Engineer at Mercy BioAnalytics. Chris graduated from the University of Michigan (UM) with a B.S.E in Biomedical Engineering. During Chris’ time at the UM College of Engineering, Chris delved into research and developed novel biomedical devices. Chris is most proud of developing an automated device with four other teammates for the quick detection of histamine from saliva.
Chris collaboratively created a chemistry method for the detection of histamine that resulted in a ten-fold time improvement from existing quantitative methods. This pushed the technology closer to being fast enough for first responders to use saliva histamine to screen patients for anaphylaxis. Chris found his passion for working on life saving technologies and is driven to develop and automate early detection methods for cancer.
Britt Derrien
Executive Assistant
Britt is Executive Assistant to CEO Paul Blavin and coordinates office support for the entire Mercy BioAnaltyics team. With over 15 years providing administrative support to senior executives, Britt started her career working in the entertainment and fitness industries where she honed her office skills and ability for learning new skills in ever changing fast paced environments.
A Los Angeles native and fluent in French, Britt supports the Mercy team remotely from Los Angeles where she resides with her beautiful daughter, Gemma.
Britt is honored to be able to contribute to a such an incredibly important team effort at Mercy BioAnalytics.
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
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.)
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
Ted Snelgrove
Senior Executive Advisor
- 30+ years of life science business development success, including extensive early-stage experience
- Built and led the original molecular diagnostic commercial teams at Genomic Health (acquired by Exact Sciences for $2.8 billion) and Crescendo Bioscience (acquired by Myriad Genetics for $270M)
Barry Berger, MD
Chief Medical Advisor
- CMO for Exact Sciences Corporation 20+years
- Boarded in Anatomic, Clinical and Cytologic Pathology
- Chairman, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare 1988-1999
Ellen Goldberg
Marketing
- 20+ year career focused on developing and commercializing ground-breaking technologies in life-threatening and life-altering diseases
- Led marketing at Genomic Health. Launched the Oncotype DX® Breast Cancer Assay, a standard of care test which empowers over 80,000 women annually to make better decisions about chemotherapy
Floyd Taub, MD
Senior Executive Advisor
- Founded and led Digene, the company that revolutionized cervical cancer screening and rewrote cervical cancer prevention. Digene was ultimately acquired by Qiagen for $1.6 billion
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
Beth Karlan, MD
Dr. Karlan is Professor and Vice Chair of Women’s Health Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA
Authored over 300 research publications focused on ovarian and other women’s cancers as well as inherited cancer susceptibility. American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor
Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journals Gynecologic Oncology and Gynecologic Oncology Reports.
Chair of Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance’s Scientific Advisory Committee
Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology
Douglas Levine, MD
240+Peer-Reviewed Medical Journal Publications
Led team that mapped genomes for ovarian and endometrial cancers through the Cancer Genome Atlas
Discovered gene mutation that causes small cell ovarian cancer, Hypercalcemic Type
Doug’s lab at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center is focused on precision medicine, rare tumors, and early detection and prevention of gynecologic cancers.
Member of scientific advisory committee of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and the Clearity Foundation.
Director, Gynecologic Oncology Head, Gynecology Research Laboratory Professor, Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, New York University Langone Health
Charles “Chip” Landen, M.D.
- Associate Leader of the Women’s Oncology Program in the UVA Cancer Center
- 2010-2020 Best Doctors in America® List
- 2006 Gynecologic Cancer Foundation / Carol’s Cause Outstanding Paper Award
- ACOG Donald F. Richardson Memorial Prize Paper Award
- Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Academy Award Scholar
Bo Rueda, PhD
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School
Director of Vincent Center for Reproductive biology at the MGH Cancer Center
Manages MGH’s ovarian cancer biobank
Amy Bregar, MD
- Director, gynecologic oncology sub-internship for medical students and lead faculty for the resident gynecologic oncology rotation at Massachusetts General Hospital
- Assistant in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School
- Research interest includes clinical trial development for novel therapeutic regimens and early detection for patients with gynecologic cancer
- Member of the new investigators committee and the Older Adults Working Group of the national NRG (formally Gynecologic Oncology Group or GOG)
- MGH site PI for a phase I-II randomized multicenter trial evaluating the safety, dosing, efficacy and biological activity of a novel IL-12 plasmid formulated with PEG-PEI-Cholesterol Lipopolymer
- MGH clinical site PI of a multicenter biomarker study utilizing newly available detection and sample collection technologies investigating tumor DNA in uterine lavage and serum proteins in women undergoing surgery for suspected ovarian cancer
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
ACCELERATING CLINICAL TRIALS
For pharmaceutical companies, Mercy Halo offers a way to accelerate clinical development programs through retrospective sample analysis, patient screening and clinical trial enrollment, and companion diagnostic development to support commercialization of new drugs.
Mercy BioAnalytics works for companies who want to increase the chances of a drug’s success in clinical trials. Mercy Halo helps identify patients whose cancer has the right molecular profile for their clinical program, monitor their response to investigational drugs or combinations of drugs, and perform retrospective analyses on plasma samples in storage.
The Mercy Way
We are on a mission to improve and save the lives of people across the globe through the early detection of cancer, when it is most curable
Saving lives guides our every decision
Always lead with humility, empathy and compassion, never ego
Data and sound reasoning inform our decisions, not opinions, conventional wisdom or fear
Every second counts
There is no “us” and “them” – we are all “us”
Yes before no
It’s not about WHO is right, it’s about WHAT is right
Obsessed with finding a better way
You’ll see it when you believe it
Numbers and money follow, they never lead
Paul and Joseph, Mercy’s co-founders, are thrilled to dedicate 1/3 of the value of their investment in Mercy BioAnalytics to the establishment of the Mercy Foundation. The foundation supports life transformation for young people who need it the most and are least able to help themselves, focusing on those that have experienced foster care, homelessness, abandonment, abuse, neglect or incarceration. This legacy of serving the underserved is at the heart of our co-founder’s personal story.