Dietrich Stephan

Dietrich A. Stephan, Ph.D.
Born (1969-08-25) August 25, 1969
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Nationality American
Occupation Scientist and Entrepreneur
Known for Founder of Navigenics, Amnestix, Aueon, DiaVacs, Silicon Valley Biosystems

Dr. Dietrich Stephan, Ph.D. (born August 25, 1969) is an American human geneticist and entrepreneur who works in personalized medicine. Stephan is a Professor and Chairman of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior, he served as the founding Chairman of the Neurogenomics Department at the Translational Genomics Research Institute and as the founder of Navigenics,[1] a personal genetics company.

Academic career

Dr. Stephan received his B.S. in Biology/Biochemistry from Carnegie Mellon University and his Ph.D. in Human Molecular Genetics from the University of Pittsburgh. Stephan completed a fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute.[2] Stephan currently leads the Population Genetics and Translational Acceleration effort at the Personalized Medicine Institute, a joint initiative between the University of Pittsburgh Schools of Health Sciences and UPMC. He has held faculty positions at the Children’s National Medical Center, and at the Translational Genomics Research Institute.

In 2003, Stephan worked at Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) as a Senior Investigator and founding Chairman of the Department of Neurogenomics. He later served as the Deputy Director of Discovery Research at TGen. His laboratory has identified the genetic basis of 20 single gene disorders, and several dozen complex genetic disorders using high-throughput technologies and strategies.[3] Dr. Stephan has also worked on the provider side of healthcare, having implemented personalized genomic medicine clinical programs with sustainable business models in many provider systems. Stephan crafted the business case and obtained the initial funding for the Gene Partnership Project at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School.

Stephan has published more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific articles in the scientific literature and he served as the Chairman of the NIH Neuroscience Microarray Consortium for seven years. He sits on the Board of Directors of a number of non-profit academic institutions such as Sage Bionetworks and the Personalized Medicine Coalition.

Entrepreneur

Stephan co-founded Navigenics, a personal genetics testing company, with oncologist Dr. David Agus. In January 2007, Stephan founded Amnestix, a pharmaceutical company that focuses on the treatment of learning and memory impairment as caused by a number of conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and aging. Stephan co-founded Aueon, Inc. with Vern Norviel in 2009, a biotechnology company focused on providing early cancer diagnostic tests to appropriately select the most effective chemotherapeutic agents. In 2011, Stephan founded a next-generation genome sequencing and interpretation company named Silicon Valley Biosystems (now Lifecode). In 2013, Stephan founded and is Chairman of the Board of DiaVacs Inc, which is a pharmaceutical company based on a proprietary platform technology that utilizes dendritic cell therapy together with a mechanistic understanding of the immune system to cure antigen-specific autoimmune disorders.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.navigenics.com/visitor/about_us/team/executives/dietrich_stephan/ Stephan's profile on Navigenics
  2. ↑ http://www.aaas.org/spp/PM/bios
  3. ↑ http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-10-02-one-chip-genome_x.htm USA Today

External links

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