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Home / About / Management Team / Board of Directors / Partners
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Joseph Marasco, Ph.D., President
Dr. Marasco brings growth-stage business development and operational experience to the company through his 28 year career of commercializing chemical and biochemical technologies. Prior to joining Diffinity, he served since 2007 as CEO and board member of Chiral Quest Corp., a US headquartered fine chemical and active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing firm. Dr. Marasco has served in several other leadership roles in both early stage and publicly traded firms including Dow Chemical, Beckman, and Kaneka, where he built a $70 M business in custom product collaborations with major pharmaceutical firms. He earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from University of Virginia, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in Biochemistry at the Walter Reed Medical Center.
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Dr. Lewis J Rothberg, CTO, Co-founder and Inventor
Dr. Rothberg holds a BS in Physics, Magna cum Laude, from the University of Rochester, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed scientific articles. His current appointments include Professor of Physics, Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. Past appointments include Director, NSF Photo-induced Charge Transfer STC, University of Rochester, and Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ. Dr. Rothberg’s research has been integrated into Sony and Lucent products, and he has helped in the formation of several start-up companies. He and Dr. Huixiang Li, also at the University of Rochester, co-invented the Company’s DNA purification and molecular diagnostic technologies.
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Michael Riedlinger, Co-founder & Director
Mr. Riedlinger is the founder and president of Technology Sales and Licensing Services, and currently serves as the Director of the Rochester BioVenture Center. Technology Sales and Licensing Services was founded in 2002 and specializes in business development programs for organizations that seek new sources of revenue from licensing or selling their technical innovations to others. The company also provides consulting services to support economic development and public/private technology commercialization activities in the Upstate New York region. Michael also served as the president of NaturalNano, Inc., to November, 2006. NaturalNano, Inc., founded in 2004, is a publicly traded nanomaterials company developing proprietary technologies and processes for providing novel properties for a wide range of applications. These include industrial polymers, plastics and composites; and additives to cosmetics, agricultural, and household products. Prior to founding Technology Sales and Licensing, Mr. Riedlinger was Chief Executive Officer of Vitalwork, Inc., an organizational development company focused on training and corporate culture change for the telecommunications industry.
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Robert A. Evans, Director
Mr. Evans is currently a Management Consultant providing services in general management, sales and marketing, acquisitions and divestitures involving medical device manufacturers over the last 15 years. Evans background includes tenure as Corporate Vice-President of Graphic Controls, where he formed and grew their Medical Products Division to a $40 million business; coordinated the acquisition of Devon industries, a $75 million manufacturer of operating room specialty products; established an Abbott manufacturing facility in Ireland; and oversaw several acquisitions and divestitures. Prior to Graphic Controls, Evans served as General Manager of Abbott Laboratories Medlon Products Division; General Manager of Abbott Ireland, LTD; and Business Unit Manager of Abbott’s Fluid Systems Division. He has personally managed over 20 acquisitions and divestitures throughout his career. He has joined Diffinity’s Board of Directors as the representative of a group of Series A Shareholders, which includes the Rochester Angel Network, Seed Capital Fund of Central New York, and the Western New York Venture Association.
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John F. Foskett, Director
Mr. Foskett is co-founder of and currently serves as the Technical Director of Kapa Biosystems, a company using high-throughput protein evolution technology for the development and sale of life science tools for DNA amplification, next-generation DNA sequencing, and molecular diagnostic applications. John has joined Diffinity’s Board of Directors as the representative of Table Mountain Capital LLC, a private investment company where he serves as founding Partner and Investment Committee Member. Partners of Table Mountain Capital have been involved in the founding and successful sale of other life science and technology-based ventures that include Agencourt Bioscience, a nucleic acid purification reagents and sequencing services company, Agencourt Personal Genomics, a next-generation DNA sequencing company, and ECHO LLC, a broadband network-engineering firm. Foskett is also a Partner of L.H. Investments LLC, a private investment company with a focus on alternative investments. He received a B.S. in Molecular Biology and a B.S. in Anthropology from Emory University and a M.S. in Evolutionary Biology and Molecular Biology from the University of Colorado.
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| Eric Allyn, Director
Mr. Allyn is an owner of Welch Allyn, a manufacturer of Medical Devices based in Skaneateles NY where he now serves as co-chairman of the company's board. He began his career with Welch Allyn in 1982, working in a variety of roles including Sales Management, Business Development, Product Management, Marketing Communications, Product Development and Country Management, with two years living in the UK as Country Manager. He had sales responsibility in Japan and portions of Asia for seven years and has extensive industry knowledge in medical devices, health care delivery, and international business. Mr. Allyn led the company's transition from the 3rd generation of Family management/ownership to the 4th generation of Family ownership utilizing non-family management. Outside of Welch Allyn, Mr. Allyn is the Chairman of the Board of Auburn Memorial Hospital, and serves on the Board of Directors of GOJO (makers of Purell), Pharma Tech Industries, and Family Enterprise USA. He serves on the Board of Governors of Hospital Trustees of NYS (HTNYS), and is the founding partner of Allyn Family Capital Fund LLC, and Allyn Family Pooled Fixed Income Fund LLC. Mr. Allyn works with a number of Financial Institutions managing the portfolios of various endowments, foundations, and trusts. Mr. Allyn earned his Master of Business Administration degree at the Darden School at the University of Virginia, and is a graduate of Dartmouth College.
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Donald E. Pogorzelski , Director
Mr. Pogorzelski was previously President of Genzyme Diagnostics prior to selling the Division to Sekisui Chemical in 2011. Mr. Pogorzelski joined Genzyme Diagnostics in 1988, assumed the role of President in 1996, and became an Officer of the Corporation in 2001. He has held several senior management positions prior to his role at Genzyme. In his last assignment prior to joining Genzyme, he was the Regional Marketing Manager, Boston Region (Northeast), Abbott Laboratories, Diagnostics Division. He joined Abbott in 1976. He earned his M.B.A. at the University of Chicago with concentrations in Marketing and Finance and his B.S. at Loyola University, Chicago with a major in Zoology. He lives in Cambridge, MA. with his wife. They have two children. He was elected to the NEBH Board of Trustees in February 2007, was on the Institutional Review Board at New England Baptist Hospital from mid 2002 to February 2007 and in 2006 joined the NEBH Board of Visitors. He currently is Vice Chair of the board. He is also a Trustee for St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church of Boston. Mr. Pogorzelski was the commencement speaker at Wentworth Institute of Technology and received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Engineering Technology there in 2006. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees at Wentworth and chairs the Trusteeship and Governance committee.
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