About 454
Management
The following individuals comprise the executive leadership of 454 Life Sciences™.
- Christopher K. McLeod
President and CEO
Mr. McLeod has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of 454 Life Sciences since February 2005. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President of CuraGen from November 1999, where he oversaw bioinformatics, strategic business development, and collaborative research, including the negotiation of strategic partnerships with Abgenix, Bayer and TopoTarget A/S. Prior to joining CuraGen, Mr. McLeod spent three years as Chief Executive Officer of Havas Interactive (formerly Cendant Software), a leading international software developer whose annual revenues increased in excess of 60 percent to over $500 million during his tenure. Prior to heading Havas Interactive, Mr. McLeod served as Executive Vice President and Director at CUC International where he was President of the CompuCard division, marketing affinity membership programs with partners including Citibank, Sears, Bank One and Chase. CompuCard was recognized on the Inc 100 list of fastest growing public companies.
Mr. McLeod earned his B.S. Magna Cum Laud with a dual major in economics and engineering and applied science from Yale University and his M.S. in management from the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. McLeod serves on the boards of Sacred Heart University, Fairfield College Preparatory School and the CT Yankee Council, Boy Scouts of America.
- Peter J. Dacey, C.P.A.
Vice President of Finance and Operations
Mr. Dacey was involved in the company's initial formation and fund-raising efforts. Prior to joining 454 Life Sciences in July 2000, he served as the Chief Financial Officer, Director of Finance and Treasurer of CytoTherapeutics, Inc., and Stem Cells, Inc., publicly held medical device development and stem cell discovery companies. Prior to that, Mr. Dacey served in various management and staff positions with Ernst & Young LLP. Mr. Dacey earned a Bachelor of finance and business administration from the University of Rhode Island.
- Michael Egholm, Ph.D.
Vice President of Research and Development
Dr. Egholm joined the 454 management team from Molecular Staging, where he served as Senior Vice President of Research and Development. While at Molecular Staging, Dr. Egholm led the development of the REPLI-g single tube whole genome amplification product as well as their industry leading blood protein profiling platform. Prior to that, Dr. Egholm was at Applied Biosystems working on Peptide Nucleic Acids, of which he was a co-inventor. Dr. Egholm earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
- Marcel Margulies, Ph.D.
Vice President of Engineering
Dr. Margulies joined 454 Life Sciences from Nascent Ventures LLC, a private consultancy he co-founded to provide management expertise to technology-driven companies. At Nascent, he focused on companies using MEMS technology in the biotech and medical device arena. Prior to that, he was Director of Engineering, and then Director of New Technology Research at Perkin-Elmer's Instrument Division. Earlier, as Associate Director of the Hubble Space Telescope project, he directed all engineering activities at Perkin-Elmer for one of NASA's largest and most successful scientific payloads. Dr. Margulies earned a B.Sc. in Engineering from the Free University of Brussels, in Belgium, and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Columbia University.
- Vanessa J. Bennett
Vice President of Program Management, Sequencing
Ms. Bennett joined 454 Life Sciences from Roche Diagnostics, where she has previously served in multiple sales, marketing and technical service roles. Prior to joining 454 Life Sciences, Ms. Bennet was the Head of Program Management for Genome Sequencing, based in Penzberg, Germany, and led the Roche team during the initial co-development and co-marketing agreement with 454 Life Sciences. Previously to her involvement with next generation sequencing, Ms. Bennett was a Marketing Manager for Applied Science and Molecular Diagnostics at Roche Diagnostics Canada, where she was involved in successfully bringing both regulated and unregulated products to market. Ms. Bennett earned her BSc in Biology from McMaster University in Canada.
- William J. LaRochelle, Ph.D.
Head of Healthcare Business Development
William LaRochelle joined 454 Life Sciences from its former parent company, CuraGen Corporation, where he directed the Preclinical Drug Development Program. Dr. LaRochelle's expertise in translational research was responsible for using CuraGen's genomic technologies to identify and validate drug targets within the Amgen Fremont fully human monoclonal antibody alliance in concert with Seattle Genetics' antibody drug conjugate technology. Prior to joining CuraGen, Dr. LaRochelle was a principle investigator at the National Cancer Institute in the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology for over 13 years. His NCI research was focused on animal models. Dr. LaRochelle earned his degrees from Manhattan College (B.S. in Biochemistry) and Dartmouth Medical School (Ph.D. - Biochemistry).
- Ulrich Schwoerer, Ph.D.
Head of Global Marketing
Prior to joining 454 Life Sciences, Dr. Schwoerer headed the Roche-owned consultancy Consulab within Roche Diagnostics Germany. In that role, he was responsible for sales, marketing and business development and successfully leveraged the market-leading value-added services into Roche's core business. Prior to that, Dr. Schwoerer was a manager at the Management-Consultancy UGW AG. Dr. Schwoerer earned a PhD in Natural Sciences from the University of Bayreuth in Germany.