Leadership

Personalis’ CEO, John West, first became involved in DNA sequencing and DNA sequence interpretation in 1982. In the 1980’s, he led the development of an automated DNA sequencing system based on pattern recognition from autoradiographs, and licensed software from the lab of Roger Staden at MRC Cambridge, UK for sequence assembly and analysis. In the 1990’s Mr. West was General Manager and subsequently President of Princeton Instruments, a company focused on low light scientific imaging. This technology was used in a number of fluorescent automated DNA sequencing developments. In 2001 Mr. West joined then market leader Applied Biosystems as Vice President of Genetic Analysis. He was subsequently promoted to VP, DNA Platforms. While at Applied Biosystems Mr. West’s group introduced the model 3730xl Genetic Analyzer. This product became the mainstay of almost every major genome center in the world.

In 2004, Mr. West moved to be CEO of Solexa Ltd, a venture capital backed UK company focused primarily on single-molecule DNA sequencing. Mr. West realized that the company’s recent acquisition of DNA cluster technology could be transformative. In 2005 he led Solexa’s reverse merger into US-based and Nasdaq-listed Lynx Therapeutics, and led two PIPE financings totaling almost $100M. The company introduced its first system in mid-2006. Mr. West negotiated the January 2007 acquisition of Solexa by Illumina, Inc for approximately $600M, and stayed as VP of the DNA sequencing business there into 2008. During this time, Illumina became the world leader in next generation DNA sequencing.

From 2009 through mid-2011 Mr. West served as CEO of ViaCyte, Inc, a company leveraging stem cell technology to develop a diabetes cell therapy.

In late 2009 Mr. West’s family became the first healthy family of four to be sequenced. Their experience  working with the Stanford team on genome interpretation led to the foundation of Personalis.

Mr. West received a BS and MS engineering degrees from MIT, and earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Dr. Chen joined Personalis in November 2011 as Chief Scientific Officer, and was promoted to Senior Vice President R&D, and Chief Medical Officer in 2021. A physician scientist, Dr. Chen has extensive expertise in systems biology, translational genomics, knowledge engineering, and scientific product development. Dr. Chen has co-founded and served on the board of several companies, including Ingenuity Systems, where he led the development of systems biology approaches to genomic data analysis for scientific discovery. Dr. Chen has also served on the clinical faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine where he led process and technology innovation for improved health care delivery. Dr. Chen received a BS in Computer Science from Stanford, and a MD from Stanford University School of Medicine. He also received a MS in biomedical informatics from Stanford. He completed his Chief Residency and Dermatology Specialty Training at Stanford and is board certified.

Aaron Tachibana joined Personalis as Chief Financial Officer in March 2019, with more than fifteen years of executive financial management experience at large, medium, and small cap public and private companies. He was promoted to Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in 2021.

Prior to Personalis, Mr. Tachibana was Chief Financial Officer at Lumentum from August 2015 to September 2018.  Lumentum is a publicly listed optical and photonics company that was a spin out from JDSU.  From November 2013 to July 2015, he was Vice President of Finance, Corporate Controller for JDSU, a public company with $1.7 billion in annual revenues.  Prior to JDSU, Mr. Tachibana was Chief Financial Officer at Pericom Semiconductor from March 2010 to October 2013, a publicly listed semiconductor company that provided high-performance connectivity and timing solutions.  From 1992 to 2010, he held executive and senior management positions with Asyst Technologies, Inc., Allied Telesis, Inc., TapCast Inc. and TeraStor Corporation.

Mr. Tachibana holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Finance from San Jose State University, and is a graduate of General Electric’s Financial Management Program.

Susan Moriconi joined Personalis in January 2021 as VP of People and Chief Human Resources Officer. Susan brings over 20 years of experience in human resources and organization strategy, including deep experience in the life sciences industry. Prior to joining Personalis, she served as Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer at Omnicell, Inc., and was responsible for global recruiting, employee engagement, talent management, diversity and inclusion, compensation and benefits, HR technology, internal communications and employee development. Earlier in her career, Susan served as VP of HR to several established healthcare and technology companies – including Boston Scientific, Stanford Healthcare, and the not-for-profit pharmaceutical Institute for OneWorld Health. She holds a BA from University of the Pacific and an MBA in Marketing from Santa Clara University.

Stephen Moore joined Personalis as General Counsel in April 2020, with more than twenty years in-house legal experience at advanced genomics companies. Prior to joining Personalis, he was General Counsel at Pacific Biosciences, a publicly listed company and pioneer in the field of single molecule, long read DNA sequencing, where he worked for over a decade. Prior to Pacific Biosciences, Mr. Moore was General Counsel at Navigenics, a venture-backed startup and consumer genomics pioneer that was later acquired by Life Technologies (now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific). Prior to Navigenics, he worked for over eight years at DNA microarray pioneer Affymetrix (which was also later acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific), where he was most recently an Associate General Counsel. Mr. Moore holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from San Jose State University, and a law degree from the University of California, Davis.

Carol J. Tillis joined Personalis in November 2011 with over 20 years of experience in senior financial management, much of it related to DNA sequencing. From 2004 to 2010, she was Vice President of Finance at Pacific Biosciences, Inc. Ms. Tillis started at Pacific Biosciences as its first full-time finance person during the company’s early development stages, and helped transition the company into a commercial entity. From 2002 to 2004, Ms. Tillis was a Financial Consultant for several early stage start-up companies. From 1999 to 2001, she was Director of Finance of Entigen Corporation, a life-science software company. From 1991-1999, she held various positions at Molecular Dynamics (Amersham Corporation) most recently as the Finance Manager – Sales Marketing and Services where she helped start the international finance operations. From 1985-1991, she worked at several banks as a Corporate Loan Officer. Ms. Tillis received a B.S. from Marquette University in 1985.

Dr. Haudenschild joined Personalis in early 2012 to build the company’s professional services department. Prior to this role he was an Associate Director in charge of commercial sequencing at Illumina Inc. in Hayward, California. His team was responsible for the preparation and next-generation sequencing of thousands of DNA and RNA samples. Dr. Haudenschild was previously the Senior Manager of Technical Accounts at Lynx Therapeutics (which later became Solexa, Inc. and which was later acquired by Illumina). At Lynx and Solexa he was involved in developing the first massively parallel protocols for the study of small RNA and DNA. In 1995, he received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Enzymology from the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France after completing a Master’s degree in 1989. He completed his postdoctoral research in Molecular Biology at Washington State University, Pullman from 1995 to 1997 and at the University of California at Berkeley from 1997 to 1999.

Stephane leads the Business Development team at Personalis. Previously, Stephane was at Illumina where he led Illumina’s companion diagnostic partnerships with pharmaceutical companies in oncology, the international expansion of NIPT (Non Invasive Prenatal Testing) and Illumina’s venture investments in start-ups such as Twist (synthetic biology) and Boreal Genomics (liquid biopsy), for which he served as Illumina-appointed board observer. Prior to Illumina, Stephane was at Caliper Lifesciences for 15 years. He developed and launched several microfluidic DNA and protein testing products that became standards in genomic laboratories today, and he led corporate development for Caliper. Stephane holds a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Strasbourg University, France.

From February 2014 to April 2016, Mr. Ludlum served as Chief Financial Officer at CareDx, a molecular diagnostics company. Mr. Ludlum has also served as Chief Financial Officer of a number of other medical technology and biotechnology companies. Mr. Ludlum holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Lehigh University and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.

Dr. Woodrow (Woody) Myers has served on our board of directors since March 2021. Dr. Myers is currently the managing director of Myers Ventures LLC and has a long and distinguished career in the healthcare industry, most recently serving as the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Healthcare Strategist at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Arizona. He has also held executive positions with Havencrest Healthcare Partners, Corizon Health, and Wellpoint Health Networks. He has served on multiple public, private, and nonprofit boards including Express Scripts, Genomic Health, LipoScience, and SynGen. In higher education he served on the Board of Trustees of Stanford University, the Board of Overseers of Harvard University, and the Board of Trustees of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science.

Dr. Myers has also been active in government, having served as physician health advisor to the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, as Health Commissioner for his home state of Indiana, and as the Commissioner of Health for the City of New York.

Dr. Myers holds a B.S. in Biological Science from Stanford University, and a medical degree (M.D.) from Harvard University. After medical school, he returned to Stanford for his internship, residency and clinical fellowship and, during this time, also completed his M.B.A. at Stanford. Dr. Myers is board-certified in internal medicine and his achievements in medical practice have earned him numerous honors including master, American College of Physicians, member, National Academy of Medicine, and fellow, American Association for Physician Leadership (formerly the American College of Physician Executives).

Personalis’ CEO, John West, first became involved in DNA sequencing and DNA sequence interpretation in 1982. In the 1980’s, he led the development of an automated DNA sequencing system based on pattern recognition from autoradiographs, and licensed software from the lab of Roger Staden at MRC Cambridge, UK for sequence assembly and analysis. In the 1990’s Mr. West was General Manager and subsequently President of Princeton Instruments, a company focused on low light scientific imaging. This technology was used in a number of fluorescent automated DNA sequencing developments. In 2001 Mr. West joined then market leader Applied Biosystems as Vice President of Genetic Analysis. He was subsequently promoted to VP, DNA Platforms. While at Applied Biosystems Mr. West’s group introduced the model 3730xl Genetic Analyzer. This product became the mainstay of almost every major genome center in the world.

In 2004, Mr. West moved to be CEO of Solexa Ltd, a venture capital backed UK company focused primarily on single-molecule DNA sequencing. Mr. West realized that the company’s recent acquisition of DNA cluster technology could be transformative. In 2005 he led Solexa’s reverse merger into US-based and Nasdaq-listed Lynx Therapeutics, and led two PIPE financings totaling almost $100M. The company introduced its first system in mid-2006. Mr. West negotiated the January 2007 acquisition of Solexa by Illumina, Inc for approximately $600M, and stayed as VP of the DNA sequencing business there into 2008. During this time, Illumina became the world leader in next generation DNA sequencing.

From 2009 through mid-2011 Mr. West served as CEO of ViaCyte, Inc, a company leveraging stem cell technology to develop a diabetes cell therapy.

In late 2009 Mr. West’s family became the first healthy family of four to be sequenced. Their experience  working with the Stanford team on genome interpretation led to the foundation of Personalis.

Mr. West received a BS and MS engineering degrees from MIT, and earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Russ Biagio Altman is Professor of Bioengineering, Genetics, & Medicine (and of Computer Science, by courtesy) and former Chairman of the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University. His primary research interests are in the application of computing technology to basic molecular biological problems of relevance to medicine. He is particularly interested in informatics methods for advancing pharmacogenomics, the study of how human genetic variation impacts drug response (e.g. https://www.pharmgkb.org/). Other work focuses on the analysis of functional sites within macromolecules with a focus on understanding the action, interaction, and adverse events of drugs.Dr. Altman holds an M.D. from Stanford Medical School, a Ph.D. in Medical Information Sciences from Stanford, and an A.B. from Harvard College. He has been the recipient of the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He is a past-president, founding board member, and a Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology. He is an organizer of the annual Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. He leads one of seven NIH-supported National Centers for Biomedical Computation, focusing on physics-based simulation of biological structures. He won the Stanford Medical School graduate teaching award in 2000. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Dr. Altman chairs the FDA Science Board advising the Commissioner 2013-2014, and is the President-Elect of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

Euan Ashley BSc (Hons), MB ChB, MRCP, DPhil, FACC, FAHA
Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular),
Director, Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease
Co-Director, Training Program in Myocardial BiologyMember, Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Translating Genomic-based Research for Health
Director, Stanford Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing Laboratory
Leadership committee, AHA Council on Functional Genomics and Translational Biology
Director, Stanford Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center

Born and raised in Scotland, Dr Ashley graduated with 1st class Honors in Physiology and Medicine from the University of Glasgow. He completed medical residency and received a PhD in molecular cardiology at the University of Oxford before moving to Stanford University where he was a Donald W. Reynolds Fellow. He trained in clinical cardiology and advanced heart failure and joined the faculty in 2006. His laboratory is focused on the application of genomics to medicine. In 2010, he led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a human genome. The paper, published in the Lancet, was reported in over 300 news stories worldwide and became one of the most cited articles in clinical medicine that year. The team extended the approach in 2011 to a family of four and now routinely apply genome sequencing to the diagnosis of patients at Stanford hospital where Dr Ashley directs the Clinical Genome Service and the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease. In 2013, Dr Ashley was recognized at the White House Data to Knowledge to Action event for his contributions to Personalized Medicine. Dr Ashley is a recipient of the National Innovation Award from the American Heart Association and a National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award. He is a member of the AHA Council on Functional Genomics, and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health. He is a peer reviewer for the NIH and the AHA as well as journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet. He is co-founder of Personalis, Inc.

Father to two young Americans, in his ‘spare’ time, he tries (and usually fails) to understand baseball, plays the saxophone in a jazz quartet, and conducts research on the health benefits of single malt Scotch whisky.

Atul Butte, MD, PhD is the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor and inaugural Director of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (https://bakarinstitute.ucsf.edu/) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Butte is also the Chief Data Scientist for the entire University of California Health System, including 20 health professional schools, and 10 hospitals. Dr. Butte has authored over 200 publications, with research repeatedly featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Wired Magazine. Dr. Butte was elected into the National Academy of Medicine in 2015, and in 2013, he was recognized by the Obama Administration as a White House Champion of Change in Open Science for promoting science through publicly available data. Dr. Butte is also a founder of three investor-backed data-driven companies: Personalis, providing medical genome sequencing services, Carmenta (acquired by Progenity), discovering diagnostics for pregnancy complications, and NuMedii, finding new uses for drugs through open molecular data. Dr. Butte is a principal investigator of three major programs: (1) the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine, implementing Governor Brown’s vision to promote precision medicine in California; (2) ImmPort, the clinical and molecular data repository for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and (3) the California Precision Medicine Consortium, helping recruit tens of thousands of participants into President Obama’s AllofUs Precision Medicine Initiative. Dr. Butte trained in Computer Science at Brown University, worked as a software engineer at Apple and Microsoft, received his MD at Brown University, trained in Pediatrics and Pediatric Endocrinology at Children’s Hospital Boston, then received his PhD from Harvard Medical School and MIT.