Summit Speakers and Panelists

 
As VP of Science, John Wilbanks runs the Science Commons project at Creative Commons. He came to Creative Commons from a Fellowship at the World Wide Web Consortium in Semantic Web for Life Sciences. Previously, he founded and led to acquisition Incellico, a bioinformatics company that built semantic graph networks for use in pharmaceutical research & development. Previously, John was the first Assistant Director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and also worked in US politics as a legislative aide to U.S. Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark.

John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Tulane University and studied modern letters at the Universite de Paris IV (La Sorbonne). He is a research affiliate at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the project on Mathematics and Computation. John also serves on the Advisory Boards of the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central, the Open Knowledge Foundation, the Open Knowledge Definition, and the International Advisory Board of the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Communities awards. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Fedora Commons digital repository organization. 

Ana M. Viamonte Ros M.D., MPH, was named Secretary of the Florida Department of Health and Florida’s first Surgeon General by Governor Charlie Crist in January 2007.  She is the first woman and the first Cuban American to hold this position.

Secretary Viamonte Ros is the mother of two grown children.
     

 
C. Russell Allen
President

Russell Allen joined BioFlorida in August 2006 and leads the organization to meet the demands of Florida’s growing bioscience industry.

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Sanford L. Meeks, PhD, serves as Associate Professor and Chief of Physics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando, and has an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Florida.  Additionally, he currently serves as the Vice Chairman for the Institutional Review Board at M.D. Anderson-Orlando, and is President of the Florida Chapter of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

   

Dr. Meeks earned his BS in physics from Florida Southern College, his M.S. in Physics from Florida State University, his PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Florida in 1994, and certification in Therapeutic Radiologic Physics from the American Board of Radiology in 1997. He joined the faculty at the University of Florida in 1995 and held appointments in the Departments of Neurological Surgery, Radiation Oncology, and Nuclear and Radiological Engineering. In 1999, he joined the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Iowa as Associate Professor and Director of Medical Physics, and he held a secondary appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Meeks has co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and 15 book chapters. His primary research interest is image-guided radiation therapy, which has been supported by more than $3.5M in grants and research contracts from State and Federal Agencies, private foundations, and industry.
  

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Dr. Shahla Masood is a Persian born physician, who currently holds the positions of Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology at University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville and Chief of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Shands Jacksonville. She is also the Director of the Pathology Residency training, as well as Cytopathology and Breast Pathology Fellowship programs. An internationally recognized expert in breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis, Dr. Masood has fostered the concept of an integrated multidisciplinary approach in breast cancer care, research, and education. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Breast Journal, the founder and the Past President of the “International Society of Breast Pathology”, and the Director of the “Annual Multidisciplinary Symposium on Breast Disease” and “The Breast Cancer Public Forum.” Dr. Masood is heavily involved in the study of minimally invasive procedures such as fine needle aspiration biopsy and ductal lavage in providing diagnostic and prognostic information in high risk and breast cancer risk patients. She has defined the cytomorphology of high-risk proliferative breast disease in early 1990’s and has pioneered the concept of cytomorphology as a breast cancer predictor. Dr. Masood is the author of the textbooks; “Cytopathology of the Breast”, “Contemporary Issues in Breast Cytopathology”, and numerous publications. She is a frequent speaker at national and international symposiums and is a member of several consensus meetings. She is also a member of board of trustees of “National Consortium of Breast Centers” and the Steering Committee of the “Breast Health Global Initiative” and a member of the “National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers”. Dr. Masood is a patient advocate, a partner in community affairs, and an accomplished artist and gourmet cook. She has received numerous awards and recognition. To name a few, Dr. Masood is the recipient of the 2005  Super Bowl Player’s Wives Fashion Extravaganza when she was honored as “Women Who Make Miracles Happen, Miracles in Medicine”, Volunteer Jacksonville Celebration of Service Award “Heart of Gold Award”, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” Award, “Top Doctors in America”, The Jacksonville Business Journal “Super Educator Heroes in Medicine Award”, and The Florida Times Union “Eve Award” in the area of education. She also received the 2008 Recognition Award of the Iranian American Association. Dr. Masood will be inaugurated in Paris, France during the second week of June as the next President of “The World Society of Breast Health”. She is the mother of two accompanied physicians, Dr. Ali Kasraeian, a urologist and Dr. Sina Kasraeian, an orthopedic surgeon in training.
    

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Adam Michael Clark, Ph.D.

Director of Health Policy

Lance Armstrong Foundation

Biography

Adam Clark, Ph.D.  is the Director of Health Policy at the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Dr. Clark has a background in biomedical science as a researcher, administrator, and health science advisor. Prior to coming to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, Dr. Clark served as a program officer and technology development specialist in the Office of Technology and Industrial Relations at the National Cancer Institute. In this role, Dr. Clark was the senior program developer of the Clinical Proteomic Technologies Initiative for Cancer, a five-year program intended to develop advanced technologies to detect low-level, cancer-related proteins circulating in blood in order to improve diagnosis, treatment, and therapeutic monitoring of cancer. These programs strove to integrate personalized medicine and early detection strategies in genomics, bioinformatics, and proteomics. 

Dr. Clark earned his doctorate in Environmental Health from the University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health’s Graduate Partnership Program conducting research on signaling pathways and gene-environment interactions in tumor development.  

After moving from the research bench, Dr. Clark was accepted into the Department of Health and Human Services’ Emerging Leaders Program where he served as a science advisor and analyst in the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. In these roles he was responsible for a number of life science issues including biomedical technologies, environmental health, nutrition, and overweight/obesity.  In 2005, after completing his work with the Emerging Leaders Program, Dr. Clark returned to the NCI Office of Technology and Industrial Relations. 

In 2007, Dr. Clark moved to the Lance Armstrong Foundation as the Director of Health Policy. In this capacity Dr. Clark oversees the policy positions and agendas of the Foundation. By incorporating his experiences in interdisciplinary biomedical research strategies he intends to improve local and national health policies in cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship.
   

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David Winialski

He spends his limited leisure time pursuing a multitude of hobbies, including restoring a classic ‘65 Mustang, photography, Bonsai gardening, SCUBA diving, scale model building and cycling.

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Carol Licko's practice focuses primarily on complex commercial litigation at all levels from trials through appeals, health and educational law, general business and corporate law, and constitutional law.

Carol served as General Counsel to Governor Jeb Bush from January 1999 through June 2000. As Governor Bush's first General Counsel, she acquired considerable experience in state governmental affairs, including statewide health care and educational reform, governmental/legislative relations, complex litigation management, media relations, and administration. Carol served two terms on the State Ethics Commission, and also served on the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force established to improve state foster care and health services provided to dependent children. She currently serves as an officer of Our Kids, Inc., an organization charged with providing community-based foster care, health care, and educational services to such children.

Carol serves as counsel to The Scripps Research Institute in establishing Scripps Florida, a new state-of-the-art scientific research institute, in Palm Beach, Florida. She also represents the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies and the University of Miami Human Genomics Center in their successful applications for grant awards from Florida’s Innovation Incentive Fund. She continues to play a key role in efforts to develop Florida’s biotech cluster.

 

Carol has also successfully represented many large and small health care providers, including both profit and nonprofit hospitals, a major university medical school, a hospital district, a community college and its medical education campus, and private physician groups. She represents these health care providers in a wide variety of matters, from class action lawsuits to licensing matters, from issues involving the costs of malpractice cases to business torts and fraud, from discrimination cases to employment and other personnel issues, and from constitutional to general policy matters. She has appeared in state and federal trial courts throughout Florida and has argued appeals in the Florida Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, and various Florida District Courts of Appeals. She has served for several years as General Counsel to WPBT-2, the largest PBS television station in Florida and the producer of the Nightly Business Report. Carol serves as General Counsel to the Miami-Dade College Foundation, serving the largest community college in the United States with more than 100,000 students.

Prior to becoming a member of the Florida Bar, Carol was a teacher and administrator for the Miami-Dade County Public School System, where she was named Dade County's Teacher of the Year and runner-up for the state of Florida's Teacher of the Year. Carol also acquired five years of part-time experience working at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach in a variety of health care and administrative roles.

At the University of Miami School of Law, Carol was an associate editor of the Miami Law Review.
   

Representative Experience

Representation of one of the largest nonprofit hospital systems in Florida in putative class action and other litigation involving hospital charges to insured and uninsured patients.

Representation of one of the world's largest scientific research institutes in its establishment of a new, state-of-the-art, scientific research institute in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Representation of one of the largest community colleges in the United States, including its medical education campus.

Representation of a major university and its medical school in efforts to reduce costs of medical malpractice cases.

Representation of a major hospital in licensing matters and related litigation.
 

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Dr. Hurt has been involved in medical education and research for almost thirty years, first at the University of Tennessee, later at Baylor College of Medicine, and at Florida State University. She was the final director of the FSU Program in Medical Sciences and was very involved in the creation of the new College of Medicine in 2000, served as acting dean from 2000 to 2001, and was the founding faculty member of the College.  She currently serves as associate dean for research and graduate programs. She is now engaged in the development of a clinical research network for the College, with the potential to involve over 1300 part-time clinical faculty on six regional clinical campuses across Florida.  She is a professor in the College of Medicine's Department of Biomedical Sciences and leads a molecular biology research group engaged in dissecting the regulation of cellular division at the molecular level. She enjoys working with students in the laboratory and has directed the research of 12 doctoral students, one who earned an M.S., and 24 undergraduate researchers at FSU.   She was appointed by the Governor of the State of Florida in 2006 to the state's Biomedical Research Advisory Council.

 
A native of Valdosta, Georgia, Jack Sullivan, Jr. attended Davidson College, in Davidson, NC, attaining a BA in Psychology. He went on to further his studies at Vanderbilt University, were he graduated with an MBA, with a concentration in Finance. 

Todd E. Golde MD PhD

Dr. Morris practices Hematology, Internal Medicine and Oncology in Naples, Florida. Dr. Daniel Morris graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and currently serves as a council member to the King-Bankhead Coley Biomedical Research Program.

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