2011 Board of Advisors
A panel of all-star advisors keeps TEDMED focused on the cutting edge of medical innovation.
- John E. Abele
Co-Founder, Boston Scientific Corporation - David Agus
Professor of Medicine,
University of Southern California - Alexandra Drane
President and Co-Founder, Eliza Corporation - Richard N. "Dick" Foster
Senior Faculty Fellow at Yale School of Management - Jamie Heywood
Co-Founder & Chairman, Patientslikeme - Barton Kamen
Clinical Research Professor, Metronomx - Dean Kamen
President, DEKA Research & Development - Daniel Kraft
Physician, Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology
& Regenerative Medicine - Willard D. "Bill" Nielsen
Corporate Management Consultant,
former VP of Johnson & Johnson - Leonard Sender
Medical Director of the Hyundai Cancer Institute
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John E. AbeleCo-Founder, Boston Scientific Corporation |
John Abele is a cofounder and director of Boston Scientific Corporation, a pioneer and leader in the field of "Less Invasive Medicine." John holds numerous patents and has published and lectured extensively on the technology of various medical devices and on the technical, social, economic, and political trends and issues affecting healthcare. His major interests are science literacy for children, education, and the process by which new technology is invented, developed, and introduced to society. Current activities include Chair of the FIRST Foundation which works with high school kids to make being science-literate cool and fun, and development of The Kingbridge Centre and Institute, a conferencing institution whose mission is to research, develop, and teach improved methods for interactive conferencing: problem solving, conflict resolution, strategic planning, new methods for learning and generally help groups to become "Collectively intelligent." He lives with his wife and two dogs in Shelburne, Vermont.
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David AgusProfessor of Medicine, |
David B. Agus is a Professor of Medicine and Engineering at the USC Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering, and heads USC's Westside Cancer Center and the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. His research focuses on the application of proteomics and genomics for the study of disease and the development of new therapeutics for cancer. Dr. Agus is an international leader in new technologies and approaches for personalized healthcare. Dr. Agus has received various honors and awards, including the 2009 GQ Magazine Rockstar of Science Award. He is the founder of Oncology.com, the largest cancer internet resource/community; Applied Proteomics; and Navigenics, a genomic health care technology and wellness company. Dr. Agus' book, The End of Illness, is due out in December from the Free Press division of Simon and Schuster.
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Alexandra DranePresident and Co-Founder, |
Alexandra Drane has devoted her career to inspiring people to lead healthier, happier and more engaged lives through the use of innovative technology. Her entrepreneurial spirit and passion for technology and design have led to the launch of four successful healthcare ventures over the past 15 years. Alexandra has proven herself an innovator, whose ideas on using technology to engage people in their health - and her belief in adding a touch of joy to the often staid world of healthcare communications - have been adopted by the nation's top healthcare organizations.
Alexandra is currently president and co-founder of Eliza Corporation, a leading provider of integrated healthcare communication strategies and one of Entrepreneur magazine's "100 Brilliant Companies" (2009). The company's intelligent, tailored interactions-including automated calls powered by a patented speech recognition engine, rich web and multi-modal delivery platform and proprietary sophisticated data analytics-make health and healthcare information more accessible, more actionable and more engaging.
Eliza draws on its database of more than 400 million interactions with individuals about their health to better understand what makes people "tick" and create programs with measurable and sustained impact. Examples include increasing the number of patients who get their recommended diabetes screenings by 76%; more than doubling prescription refills over a six-month period; quadrupling participation in an online smoking cessation program; and boosting younger members' perceptions of their health plans' brands beyond what far more expensive traditional advertising campaigns deliver. But perhaps most important are the countless saved lives as the result of timely, personalized health outreach.
Alexandra is also a co-founder of Engage with Grace, a not-for-profit movement launched in October 2008 aimed at helping people understand, communicate and have honored their end-of-life wishes. She received the Boston Business Journal's "Champions of Healthcare" award for her efforts in this area, and in 2009 Engage With Grace was one of the top ten phrases added to the healthcare lexicon.
Prior to founding Eliza, Alexandra was a founder of three other healthcare ventures - all focused on developing products that enable individual behavior change through the use of technology. The output of these ventures included the web-enabled injury-tracking software system adopted by the US Olympic Committee, software that automates dialysis clinics across the U.S., and a medical device proven in clinical trials to improve asthma treatment compliance by over 35%.
Alexandra sits on the board of Eliza as well as the Board of Overseers of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Mass. She is on the Germaine Lawrence Board of Advocates, New England's leading provider of residential treatment services for adolescent girls, and also serves on the board of two other technology startups focused on using innovative technology in their respective fields. Alexandra is also a member of the Health Executive Leadership Network, Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation, and is a trustee of several charitable trusts. She also appears on the Healthspottr Future Health 100 list, which includes some of the most creative and influential people working in healthcare today.
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Richard N. "Dick" FosterSenior Faculty Fellow at |
Richard Foster is a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management. Prior to teaching at Yale, Mr. Foster was a Director and Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company, where he founded several practices including the Technology and Innovation practice, the healthcare practice and the private equity practice. From 1995 to 1998 he led McKinsey's worldwide knowledge development.
Mr. Foster's research interests are in the relationships between capital formation, innovation and regulation. Mr. Foster has written two best-selling books: "Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage" (1986) and "Creative Destruction" (2001), as well as several dozen articles in research and popular journals. In 1999 - 2000, Mr. Foster was the external leader of the Council on Foreign Relations Study Group on Innovation and Economic Power which led to the publication of "Technological Innovation and Economic Performance" by Princeton University Press (2001).
Mr. Foster is a member of the board of directors of:
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer, Executive Committee
W. M. Keck Foundation, Executive Committee
Council for Aid to Education, Strategy Committee Chair
Athenahealth, Nominating & Governance Committee Chair
Innosight, LLC, Lead Director
Trust Company of the West, Audit Committee
In addition, Mr. Foster is a member of:
Yale School of Medicine Dean's Advisory Board
Harvard Medical School Health Care Policy Advisory Committee
National Academies President's Circle, Co-Chair
National Research Council, Policy and Global Affairs Committee
Goldman Sachs Chambers Street Executive Network
Institute of Medicine, Healthcare Data Initiative Roundtable, Chair
In the past, Mr. Foster has been a member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Santa Fe Institute. Mr. Foster was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008. He is also the Managing Partner of Investment & Advisory Services, a small advisory firm. Mr. Foster received his BS, MS, and PhD from Yale University in Engineering and Applied Science.
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Jamie HeywoodCo-Founder & Chairman, |
An MIT engineer, Jamie entered the field of translational research and medicine when his brother Stephen was diagnosed with ALS in 1998 at the age of 29. With experience in design, information technology, systems modeling, neuroscience and industrial engineering, Jamie brings a unique perspective to drug discovery and medicine. The scientific and business innovations he developed at ALS TDI and PatientsLikeMe have been transforming the intersection of biotechnology and pharmaceutical development, personalized medicine, and patient care.
Currently, Jamie serves as chairman of PatientsLikeMe, where he provides the scientific vision and architecture for its patient-centered medical platform. He co-founded the company in 2005 with his youngest brother, Benjamin, and friend, Jeff Cole. Named one of "15 companies that will change the world" by CNNMoney, PatientsLikeMe is a personalized research and peer care platform that allows patients to share in-depth information on treatments, symptoms and outcomes. This novel, open model allows clinicians, providers, and the pharmaceutical industry to better understand diseases and the patient experience. Participating patients experience improved care and the ability to actively partner with industry figures to accelerate and influence the development of new treatments and biomarkers.
In 1999 shortly after Stephen was diagnosed, Jamie founded the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI), the world's first non-profit biotechnology company, where he served as CEO until 2007. Pioneering an open research model and an industrialized therapeutic validation process, Jamie led ALS TDI to become the world's largest and most comprehensive ALS research program. The journal Nature captured succinctly the broader implications of ALS TDI's program, saying it succeeded in "prompting a broad reappraisal of the way that drugs are tested in animal models of neurodegenerative disease in general." The comprehensive in-vivo validation program Jamie developed was unable to replicate the published preclinical studies of the field that lead to human trials, calling into question the standards that allowed many drugs to be tested on patients. Today, ALS TDI continues to grow and runs large-scale discovery and informatics programs focused on finding an effective pathway for treating ALS.
Jamie is a frequent speaker, media pundit and an active investment advisor. His work has been profiled in the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, BusinessWeek, 60 Minutes, Science, Nature as well as in Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Wiener's biography, His Brother's Keeper and the Sundance award-winning documentary, So Much So Fast.
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Barton KamenClinical Research Professor, |
Dr. Kamen received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, and served his residency and fellowship in pediatrics and pediatric hematology/oncology and pharmacology at Yale University, New Haven, CT. His academic career consists of three years in Wisconsin, 16 years at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as a Professor of Pediatrics and Pharmacology as the Carl B and Florence E. King Distinguished Professor Pediatrics and then 8 years as Director of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Associate Director of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ. He then served as the Chief Medical Officer of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society from 2007-2009.
During his career, Dr. Kamen has been a recipient of a Scholar Award from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, a Damon Runyon Walter Winchell Fellowship, Burroughs Wellcome Clinical Pharmacology Award and is one of only a few American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professors. He was also elected into the American Society of Clinical Investigation (Young Turk). He has authored approximately 300 manuscripts (papers and chapters) and is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pediatric Hematology / Oncology as well as serving on a number of editorial boards and advisory boards of other cancer journals. He serves on the Research and Medical Affairs Committee of the American Cancer Society and is on the board and the treasurer of the National Coalition for Cancer Research (NCCR) and is a Medical Advisor for The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.
Dr. Kamen's clinical and research interests are driven by the over arching goal of doing “translational research,’ that is taking the best science to the bedside. His major laboratory interest for more than 3 decades has centered around folate biochemistry and anti-folate pharmacology which are inseparable. Currently he is developing treatment to prevent both resistance and toxicity, especially neurotoxicity from therapy. He has also been on the forefront of developing metronomic therapy for cancer and is the chief medical officer of a new company to develop metronomic therapy as well as consulting with Industry and the Physical Sciences Oncology Program for the National Cancer Institute.
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Dean KamenPresident, DEKA Research & |
Dean Kamen is an inventor, entrepreneur, and a tireless advocate for science and technology. He is the founder and president of DEKA Research & Development Corporation, where he develops internally generated inventions and provides research and development for major corporate clients. He holds more than 440 U.S. and foreign patents for innovative devices that have expanded the frontiers of health care worldwide. Some of his notable inventions include the first wearable insulin pump for diabetics, the HomeChoice™ portable peritoneal dialysis machine, the INDEPENDENCE IBOT Mobility System, and the Segway Human Transporter.
Among Mr. Kamen's proudest accomplishments is founding FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization dedicated to motivating the next generation to understand, use, and enjoy science and technology.
Mr. Kamen was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1997, received the Heinz Award in 1998, and was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 2000. In 2002 he received the Lemelson-MIT Prize, and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2005.
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Daniel KraftPhysician, Stanford Institute |
Daniel Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur and innovator.
Dr. Kraft has over 20 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and healthcare innovation. Daniel chairs the Medicine track for Singularity University and is Executive Director for FutureMed, a program which explores convergent, exponentially developing technologies and their potential in biomedicine and healthcare.
Dr. Kraft recently founded IntelliMedicine, focused on enabling connected, data driven, and integrated personalized medicine. He is also the inventor of the MarrowMiner, an FDA approved device for the minimally invasive harvest of bone marrow, and founded RegenMed Systems, a company developing technologies to enable adult stem cell based regenerative therapies.
Following undergraduate degrees at Brown and medical school at Stanford, Dr. Kraft was board certified in the Harvard combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency program at the Massachusetts General and Boston Children’s Hospital, and completed Stanford fellowships in hematology/oncology & bone marrow transplantation, and extensive research in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. He has multiple scientific publications (including in Nature and Science), medical device, immunology and stem cell related patents through faculty positions with Stanford University School of Medicine and as clinical faculty for the pediatric bone marrow transplantation service at UCSF.
Daniel is an avid pilot and serves in the California Air National guard as an officer and flight surgeon with an F-16 fighter Squadron. He has conducted research on aerospace medicine that was published with NASA, with whom he was a finalist for astronaut selection.
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Willard D. "Bill" NielsenCorporate Management Consultant, former VP of Johnson & Johnson |
Willard D. "Bill" Nielsen is a management communications consultant. He specializes in organizational vision and values, corporate communications, public relations, public affairs and corporate coaching, drawing on experience gained over 30 years in both industry and agency leadership positions.
Mr. Nielsen serves on the Boards of Trustees of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Arthur W. Page Society and The Josephson Institute of Ethics. He also serves on Advisory Boards for the TEDMED Conferences and The Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity In Public Communications at Penn State University.
Mr. Nielsen retired as Corporate Vice President, Public Affairs, of Johnson & Johnson in 2004, after 17 years with the Company. He joined Johnson & Johnson in 1988, following 18 years as a public relations agency consultant with Carl Byoir & Associates and Hill and Knowlton.
Mr. Nielsen was a Trustee of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for ten years, and a Board Director of the Foundation of Children's Hospital, National Medical Center, Washington, D.C., for eight years.
Programs he supervised won four PRSA Silver Anvils.
He served two terms as president of the Arthur W. Page Society and was inducted into that organization's Hall of Fame in September 2003. He is a past chairman of The Seminar. He also chaired the board of the Institute for Public Relations and continues as an emeritus director, and served on the Board of Directors of the Global Public Affairs Institute. He is a member of The Wisemen and the Public Relations Society of America.
Mr. Nielsen is a native of Sacramento, California. Following graduation from Oregon State University, he served for five years as a public information officer with the U.S. Air Force. He is married and is the father of three daughters. He and his wife, Doris, live in Maryland where they are both active in community service.
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Leonard SenderMedical Director of the |
Dr. Leonard Sender is Medical Director of the Hyundai Cancer Institute and Division Chief of Pediatric Oncology for Pediatric Subspecialty Faculty at CHOC Children's Hospital in Orange, California. Furthermore, he is Medical Director of Clinical Operations and Program Development and Director of the Young Adult Cancer Program at UC Irvine Medical Center's Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, also in Orange.
Dr. Sender received his medical education in South Africa and his pediatrics internship and residency at UC Irvine Medical Center. His pediatric hematology/oncology subspecialty training included Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. Dr. Sender subsequently developed expertise in adult hematology/oncology at the University of Kentucky, where he was a faculty member in the School of Medicine. He is board-certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Outside of the University and CHOC, Dr. Sender serves as chairman of the I'm Too Young for This (i[2]y) Cancer Foundation and is the founding member and chairman of SeventyK.org, an adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer advocacy foundation.
Dr. Sender's clinical interests lie in the treatment of AYAs, defined as persons 15-39 years old, with cancer. Along the way, he strives to also address his patient's "ancillary" needs including preservation of fertility, management of acute and chronic effects of treatment, and being sensitive to the psychosocial impact that a cancer diagnosis imparts to those who are just at the beginning of their "productive years." Dr. Sender's primary research interests lie in better understanding cancer and its impact on the AYA cancer patient. This interest is comprehensive and multidisciplinary extending from epidemiological components (incidence, prevalence, root causes) to biological factors (genetic or cellular differences) to the psychosocial impact of disease in the population to long-term cancer survivorship.
