SLAS Elects Three New Members of the Board of Directors

The results of the election are now complete and certified, and all new Board member terms commence January 31, 2012.

“SLAS is pleased to announce and welcome three highly qualified individuals as members to the SLAS Board of Directors,” says Michelle Palmer, SLAS president. “Adding the expertise and diversity of Frank Fan, Robyn Rourick and Daniel Sipes will help SLAS fulfill its mission of being the preeminent global organization for laboratory science and technology professionals.”

The newly elected members of the SLAS Board of Directors are:

•    Frank Fan, Ph.D., Promega Corporation

Frank Fan is a Director of Research at Madison, WI-based Promega Corporation. His group focuses on developing assays and technologies for cellular analysis and drug discovery. Previously, Fan was a Senior Investigator in the anti-infectives division at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. He is an active member of SLAS, serving as co-chair of SLAS2012, and has chaired several symposia in the past. He is also an editor for several scientific journals. Fan earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Iowa and a B.S. degree in biology from Nankai University, Tianjin, China. He did his post-doctoral research in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, New Haven, CT.

•    Robyn Rourick, M.S., Genentech

Robyn Rourick brings to the SLAS Board of Directors more than 20 years of industrial experience in development, direction and management of pharmaceutical sciences, analytical chemistry and DMPK. She is currently Senior Manager of Study Operations, Development Sciences at Genentech in San Francisco, where she oversees non-clinical studies for multiple therapeutic programs. Rourick is an active member of SLAS, serving on the Executive Council of the Laboratory Automation Section. She is also affiliated with the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the American Chemical Society. Rourick holds an M.S. degree in forensic chemistry from the University of New Haven and a B.S. degree in chemistry from Fairfield University, both in Connecticut.

•    Daniel Sipes, M.S., The Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation

Sipes is Director of Advanced Automation Technologies at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation. In this role, he is responsible for development of hardware and assay technologies to support large-scale cellular profiling and high-throughput screening efforts. He is an active member of SLAS, is serving as co-chair of SLAS2012, and has chaired tracks and sessions at numerous scientific conferences in the past. Sipes holds an M.S. degree in immunology from the University of California, Davis, where he focused on molecular biology. He also holds a B.S. degree in molecular biology with a minor in chemistry from California State University, Sacramento.

The three board members whose terms close in January are:

•    Robert Ames, Ph.D., GlaxoSmithKline
•    William Janzen, Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
•    Michelle Palmer, Ph.D., Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT

Existing members of the SLAS Board of Directors are:

•    Jason Abbas, M.S., Syngenta
•    David Dorsett, M.B.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb
•    Jeff Paslay, Ph.D., Paslay Consulting Group
•    Erik Rubin, Ph.D., Bristol-Myers Squibb
•    Mary Jo Wildey, Ph.D., Merck Research Labs
•    Andy Zaayenga, HiRes Biosolutions