David H. Crean has over 30 years of buy- and sell-side expertise in mergers and acquisitions, partnering and investing within the life sciences and healthcare sectors working within strategic biopharmaceutical companies, investment banking, private equity, and venture capital firms. He currently serves as managing partner for Cardiff Advisory focused on the life sciences and healthcare sectors. In his advisory capacity, he has provided strategic guidance to more than 100 clients enabling them to address and meet their short- and long-term goals of growth or exit.

Crean holds FINRA Series 79 and Series 63 licenses and is a registered investment banking representative of BA Securities. He holds a doctorate in biophysics and a Master of Science degree in oncology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology/pre-med from Canisius College. Additionally, Crean holds a Master of Business Administration degree with a finance concentration from Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Management.

Matthew Pelo is founder and CEO of Fore Genomics, the provider of Foresite 360, a predisposition genetic test designed for newborns, infants, and children. Pelo was part of the founding executive team at the New York Genome Center and led finance, operations, and business development functions at various times in his nine-year tenure. Notable projects Pelo led while at NYGC included working with IBM to open a cancer data repository to tap insights from Watson, creating a $105 million Genomic Medicine Network in NY with the University of Buffalo, and launching the first CLEP-approved predisposition WGS test. Before his work at NYGC, Pelo spent time in finance leading life science sell-side, buy-side, and capital formation transactions across diagnostics, biopharma, medical device, and healthcare sectors.

Matthew Bainbridge has worked with high-throughput sequencing since its inception. At Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, he constructed the first algorithms for RNA-seq, chip-seq, and structural rearrangement discovery for the 454 and Solexa sequencing platforms. He later received his doctorate in structural and computational biology and molecular biophysics from his work at the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center (BCM-HGSC). There, he helped develop the BCM-HGSC’s Illumina analysis pipeline and capture-resequencing analytics, and he co-developed capture reagents, both regional and whole-exome — including some of the largest capture targets ever sequenced.

Bainbridge’s analytic tools were central to the analysis of one of the first personal genomes used for medical diagnostics [Lupski]. Later, he led the team that discovered the molecular cause of DRD in siblings. This information was used, for the first time, to alter the management and medications the children received. Later, he used whole-exome sequencing (WES) to find a novel gene for a previously undescribed disease, marking one of the first times WES was used to molecularly describe a disease before its clinical description.

Jessica is the mother of a 10-year-old little girl named Sophie, who has limb girdle muscular dystrophy 2A/Rl; a rare progressive muscle wasting disease. Jessica's daughter endured two years of being misdiagnosed with necrotizing myositis, painful procedures, and unnecessary treatments when a simple genetic cheek swab test could have revealed immediate answers. Fabre’s mission is to help spread awareness about rare disorders, prevent misdiagnosis and initiate early detection of possible disease.

Fabre resides in Sarasota, Florida with her two children. She is formerly from northern New Jersey. Fabre’s professional background involved working extensively with CEOs, corporate marketing, and assisting with acquisitions for a publicly traded company. Little did she know her research abilities, attention to detail, and unrelenting determination to complete projects in business would prepare her for a career she never imagined she’d have. Being an advocate gives a sense of purpose to the unforeseen turn her life took.

Chris Dwan is an experienced leader with more than two decades of experience applying computing and data technologies to genomics and precision medicine. Dwan was the first employee at BioTeam, designed and built the IT organization for the New York Genome Center, led research computing at the Broad Institute, and created the production bioinformatics department at Sema4 (now operating as GeneDx). Dwan has supported over 20 clients as a freelancer, including Moderna, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Arrakis Therapeutics, Neon Therapeutics, Northeastern University, the INOVA Health System, Fore Genomics, NASA, and Cray.

Darren Ames has over 20 years of experience in bioinformatics in ever expanding roles working with clinical diagnostic organizations to achieve success through greater efficiency, flexibility, and market reach using cloud technology. Ames is currently is director of solutions science focused on clinical diagnostics for DNAnexus. Recent studies have been published in Nature, The American Journal of Human Genetics and The American Journal of the Medical Informatics Association. He holds a Master of Science degree in genome sciences from the University of Arizona.