MANAGEMENT
Michael Rice, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Mike Rice became president and chief executive officer and a member of our Board of Directors in August 2006, and Chairman in August 2007. He has more than 20 years of leadership and entrepreneurial experience in the medical and high tech industries. He was most recently the senior business development manager for medical and wireless products at AMI Semiconductor (NASDAQ:AMIS). Mr. Rice also served as the director of marketing and business development at Cardiac Science, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCX), a manufacturer of automated external defibrillators. Prior to that, he was the Vice President, Sales and Marketing for TEGRIS Corporation, a privately held network services provider. Mr. Rice also spent 12 years at Physio Control Corporation in several sales and marketing management roles prior to its acquisition by Medtronic Inc.
Aby J. Mathew, Ph.D., Senior Director of Strategic Relations
and Senior Scientist
Dr. Mathew was part of the founding team of BioLife Solutions, and is a co-developer of BioLife’s biopreservation media solutions. He is a co-inventor on multiple issued and pending patents related to methods, devices, and formulations for the preservation of cells, tissues, and organs. He holds a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences within the Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology Program from Binghamton University and a B.S. in Microbiology from Cornell University. Dr. Mathew has been researching low temperature biopreservation since 1994, and his studies contributed to the development of BioLife’s current commercial HypoThermosol® and CryoStor™ product platforms and intellectual property foundation. Dr. Mathew was part of the scientific team that linked cell death via apoptosis (programmed cell death) to exposure to hypothermic and/or freezing temperatures. These discoveries were integral to the development of BioLife’s improved intracellular-like biopreservation solutions, and also contributed to improvements in cryosurgical ablation of cancer.
Dominic Clarke, Ph.D., Director of Research & Development
Dr. Clarke joined BioLife in 2007 and brings an extensive background in the field of low temperature biology. He has authored or co-authored several scientific papers detailing the effects of cold stress and freezing temperatures on cell survival. Dr. Clarke has been the Principal Investigator on multiple NIH SBIR funded grants. He holds a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the State University of New York at Binghamton and performed his post-doctoral studies in the field of Cellular and Developmental Biology at Syracuse University Upstate Medical Center. In addition to directing our research and product development activities, Dr. Clarke has co-authored several of the Company’s recent patent applications.
Don Thompson, Director of Manufacturing
Don joined BioLife in July of 2008 and brings nearly 15 years of aseptic production, downstream protein purification, and process development experience to BioLife. After receiving his B.S. in Microbiology at WSU, he spent over 4 years at Immunex (Amgen) where he was part of the cGMP manufacturing team involved with the licensing of Leukine® (Sargramostim), which is used for myeloid reconstitution after bone marrow transplantation and to treat neutropenia induced by chemotherapy. Don also led the purification team that produced early clinical material for what is now Enbrel® (Etanercept). Don also spent 10 years at ICOS (CMC-ICOS), working in cGMP purification, process scale-up, and process development. Don led teams that were responsible for the production of clinical and pre-clinical material for 6 different protein-based products. .
Mark Sandifer, Director of Quality
Mark's background is in drug development and clinical administration. He has ten years of experience in quality assurance. His keen interest in how the quality aspects of our products support cell therapies comes from his work with Georgetown University Medical Center’s bone marrow transplant program in association with the National Marrow Donor Program. He holds an M.S. in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in Biology from George Mason University.