Scientific and Clinical Advisors

Dr. Langer is the Chair of Seer’s Scientific Advisory Board. He is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Langer’s scientific work, particularly in drug delivery systems and tissue engineering, has been cited over 275,000 times with an H-Index of 262, and his inventions include over 1300 issued or pending patents. He is the youngest person ever elected to all three U.S. National Academies (Science, Engineering, and Medicine). He is one of 4 living individuals to have won both the U.S. National Medal of Science (2006) and the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011); and he has won over 220 other major awards. He served as a member of the U.S. FDA’s Science Board from 1995 — 2002 and as its Chairman from 1999-2002. Dr. Langer has co-founded over 26 companies, including Moderna, Momenta, and Transform. Dr. Langer has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and an Sc.D. in chemical engineering from MIT.

Dr. Ronaghi is Board Member, Co-Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board & Chair of the Technology Committee for Seer. He most recently spent over a decade at Illumina as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, where led internal research and technology development, co-founded Grail, and founded the Illumina Accelerator program, a first of its kind innovation ecosystem in the genomics industry. Before joining Illumina, he founded four life sciences companies – Avantome (acquired by Illumina in 2008); NextBio (acquired by Illumina in 2013); ParAllele Bioscience (acquired by Affymetrix in 2005); and Pyrosequencing AB (renamed as Biotage in 2003). Dr. Ronaghi was a principal investigator at the Stanford Genome Technology Center at Stanford University from 2002 to 2008, where his research focused on the development of novel molecular diagnostic tools and applications. He is the inventor of more than 30 patents and the author of more than 80 publications. Dr. Ronaghi received his B.Sc. in biochemistry from Kalmar University and his Ph.D. in biotechnology from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.

Dr. Carr is the Chair of the Proteomics Committee of Seer’s Scientific Advisory Board. He is senior director of proteomics at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and an institute scientist. He is internationally recognized as a leader in the development of novel proteomics methods and in their application in biology, chemistry, and medicine. His research has a major focus on the discovery and quantitative verification of biomarkers for major diseases including cancer and cardiovascular and infectious diseases, as well as pharmacodynamics markers of drug response. Prior to returning to academia in 2004, Dr. Carr held scientific leadership positions at GlaxoSmithKline where he was the director of computational and structural sciences and at Millennium Pharmaceuticals where he was senior director of protein science and technology. He has more than 280 publications, and he is deputy editor of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, the leading journal in the field of proteomics. Dr. Carr received his B.S. from Union College and Ph.D. from MIT.

Dr. Farias is the Chair of the Data Committee of Seer’s Scientific Advisory Board. He is the Patrick J. McGovern (1959) Professor at the MIT Sloan School, affiliated with the Operations Management and Operations Research Center at MIT. His research focuses on optimization and inference from large-scale stochastic systems (ranging from supply chains to protein networks). He serves on the editorial boards of the journals Operations Research, Management Science and the Informs Journal on Optimization. He is also Chief Technology Officer of Celect, a company focused on advanced analytics solutions for supply chains. Dr. Farias received his B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Dr. Böttinger is the inaugural Professor of the Digital Engineering Faculty of Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) and University of Pottsdam. In his role, he is creating a new academic department in the areas of digital health and healthcare data analyses. Prior to joining HPI, he was the Chief Executive Officer of the Berlin Institute of Health from 2015 to 2017. Dr. Böttinger maintains his faculty position as Professor of Medicine for Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital, which he joined in 2003. While at Mt. Sinai, he founded the Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine. Before joining Mt. Sinai, he was on the faculty of Medicine and Molecular Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Böttinger received his M.D. degree from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and he is also a Board-certified nephrologist where he trained at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Cantor is Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. He is also the former Chief Scientific Officer of Sequenom, Inc., a San Diego genetics testing company, and now part of Lab Corp. His research has focused on identifying biological problems that are resistant to conventional analytical approaches and then developing new methodologies or techniques for solving these problems. His laboratory has developed methods for separating large DNA molecules, for studying structural relationships in complex assemblies of proteins and nucleic acids, and for sensitive detection of proteins and nucleic acids in a variety of settings. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science. Dr. Cantor has published more than 400 peer reviewed articles, been granted 54 patents, and co-authored a three-volume textbook on Biophysical Chemistry. He received his A.B. in Chemistry from Columbia University, and his Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry from University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Hyman is John B. Penny Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Massachusetts Alzheimer Disease Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, with the goal of understanding the neuropathophysiological and genetic factors that underlie dementia. His own research focuses on understanding the anatomical and molecular basis of dementia in Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. Dr. Hyman also has a clinical practice at Memory and Disorder unit at Massachusetts General Hospital devoted towards the care of patients with dementia. He was awarded the Potamkin Prize in 2006, together with Karen Duff and Karen Ashe, for research achievements in Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr. Hyman received his B.A. from Northwestern University, and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa.

Dr. McClellan is the Director and Robert J. Margolis MD, Professor of Business, Medicine and Health Policy, and founding Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University. Previously, he was Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. Dr. McClellan is a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and former commissioner of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He previously served as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, senior director for health care policy at the White House, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Department of the Treasury. Dr. McClellan holds multiple additional roles including: founding chair and current board member, Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA; member, National Academy of Medicine; co-chair, guiding committee of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network; research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research; and Senior Faculty Advisor, University of Texas Dell Medical School. Dr. McClellan also serves on the boards of Johnson & Johnson, Cigna and Alignment Healthcare.

Dr. Parak is Professor of Physics and Chemistry at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and is a Group Leader of the Center of Hybrid Nanostructures at the University. He was previously Professor of Experimental Physics at the Phillips University of Marburg, Germany and head of the Biofunctional Nanomaterials Unit at CIC biomaGUNE, San Sebastian, Spain. His research has focused on the interaction of nanoparticles with biological systems, through using the tools of chemistry, physics, and biology to gain fundamental insight into the complexities of the bio-nano interface. He is the author of over 250 peer-reviewed articles, and an Associate Editor of the journal ACS Nano. Dr. Parak received his Ph.D. from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, and also did post-doctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Weissleder is Thrall Professor of Radiology and Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, where he is Director of the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research focuses on advanced nanomaterials and novel molecular imaging systems, including for early disease detection. He is the inventor of 27 patents and is the author of over 800 publications (cited over 100,000 times with an H-Index of 166). Dr. Weissleder is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and the German National Academy of Sciences. He has received numerous awards for his research work, including the J. Taylor International Prize in Medicine, the Millennium Pharmaceuticals Innovator Award, and the Society for Molecular Imaging Lifetime Achievement Award. As an entrepreneur, he has founded T2 Biosystems, Lumicell, and VisEn Medical (acquired by Perkin Elmer). Dr. Weissleder received both his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Heidelberg.

Dr. Diaz is the head of the division of solid tumor oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He was previously a faculty member and physician at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was a member of the renowned Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics and was Director of the Swim Across America Laboratory. Dr. Diaz founded several cancer genomics entities including Inostics, PapGene and Personal Genome Diagnostics, Inc. His research has focused on cancer mutations as biomarkers in circulating tumor DNA for cancer screening and monitoring. Dr. Diaz has received numerous awards, including the 2013, 2014 and 2017 AACR Team Science Award, and the Waun Ki Hong Award for Outstanding Acheivement in Cancer Research. He received his B.S. in microbiology, his M.D. from the University of Michigan, his internal medicine residency training at the Osler Medical Service, and his medical oncology fellowship training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Diaz currently leads the SU2C Colon Cancer Dream Team, is Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Discovery and is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

Dr. Josh Coon is a chemist and professor of Chemistry and Biomolecular Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his graduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Florida and later worked at the laboratory of Professor Don Hunt in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he co-developed the widely used electron transfer dissociation (ETD) method for peptide sequencing. Dr. Coon is the Thomas and Margaret Pyle Chair at the Morgridge Institute for Research and has published over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts, received numerous awards including the Biemann Medal from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, the Pittsburgh Conference Achievement Award from the Pittcon Society, and most recently the ACS Chemical Instrumentation Award. Dr. Coon invented the widely practiced method of parallel reaction monitoring, many technologies related to multi-omic analysis, and is a leader in the field of mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Dr. Coon’s laboratory group has produced over 40 PhD graduates and 15 postdoctoral scholars.