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Home / About Us / 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.
Jeff Helfer, Executive Advisor and Director - New Business Development
Jeff Helfer is an entrepreneur and angel investor with 33 years experience in medical product development and manufacturing, new business development, and regulatory affairs. He recently co-founded and served as CEO of MYOTECH, LLC, to commercialize a unique, alternative human heart pump, and VP of Engineering for Biophan Technologies, Inc. where he successfully developed new medical device technologies that led to business partnerships with Boston Scientific and Medtronic. Previously, at Johnson & Johnson, he served as Program Director, Director of New Business Development, Director of Regulatory Affairs, and Director of Engineering. At Eastman Kodak Company, Helfer participated in the early development of the company’s Ektachem clinical diagnostic business, formed and managed the company’s radiographic imaging research laboratory, and participated in multiple life science business development initiatives.
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Dr. Lewis J Rothberg, CTO, Co-founder and Inventor
Dr. Rothberg along with Dr. Huixiang Li, both at the University of Rochester, co-invented the Company’s DNA purification and molecular diagnostic technologies. Dr. Rothberg holds a BS in Physics, Magna cum Laude, from the University of Rochester, Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University, and 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.
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Rhiannon Gaborski, R&D Program Manager
Rhiannon has 10 years experience in Molecular Biology in a variety of life science areas. She is currently working on the development of Diffinity core technology for the initial product line for nucleic acid purification. She is also responsible for identifying and developing future products and applications for the core technology within the life sciences market. She holds a BS in Biological Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY and an MS in BioMedical Engineering, from the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
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Robin Hodownes, VP Sales & Marketing
Robin brings an extensive set of experience in marketing, sales, business development, and business management. Before joining Diffinity Genomics, she worked for Carestream Health and Eastman Kodak in various sales, marketing, product, & general management positions. She has successfully grown and led new business divisions and launched products worldwide, resulting in triple digit sales growth. Robin holds a Bachelor of Science from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of Rochester Simon School of Business, Rochester, NY.
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George Diaz, Director of Manufacturing
George brings to Diffinity extensive experience in the design and manufacture of innovative devices, equipment, and packaging solutions from the medical device market. Prior to joining the Company, he served as Senior Process Engineer at Bausch & Lomb where he managed multimillion dollar medical product development projects across matrixed organizations from concept through execution, meeting or exceeding corporate expectations for schedule, quality, product performance, financial performance, and regulatory compliance. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and anticipates a M.S. in Packaging Science by end of year, both from the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, George is also fluent in English and Spanish.
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Holly Reynolds, R&D Program Manager
Holly has 10 years of experience in molecular biology in many life science areas, from biochemical applications to characterize proteins important in many human diseases, to designing gene therapy vectors for clinical applications. She holds a BS in Biology from RIT and an MS in Virology from the University of Rochester.
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