Board of Advisors
Dr. David Acheson
Board Advisor, Chairman of the Food Safety Committee
Dr. David Acheson will Chair the food safety committee that will inform the company’s development of rapid detection testing technologies for the food industry.
Dr. David Acheson has more than 35 years of medical and food safety research experience. He served as the Chief Medical Officer at both the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). Dr. Acheson was later appointed as the first Associate Commissioner for Foods at FDA. For the past decade, he has consulted with the world’s largest food brands at all levels of the food supply chain through his firm, The Acheson Group, published extensive research and has been a regular guest on national news programs.
Dr. Acheson studied internal medicine and infectious diseases at the University of London Medical School. He then taught and studied at Tufts University in Boston where he researched the molecular pathogenesis of foodborne pathogens. Additionally, David was a fellow at the Royal College of Physicians in London and the Infectious Disease Society of America.
Paul Glyer
Clinical/Human Diagnostics Board Advisor
Paul Glyer has more than 30 years of experience as a healthcare executive. He is co-founder of IOI Partners, a global strategy consulting firm, serves as the CEO of AhuraTech LLC, and is an executive advisor to Waterstreet Healthcare. Most of Paul’s healthcare career was spent with Beckman Coulter, Inc., a global medical device company. Paul joined Beckman Instruments in 1989 as assistant treasurer and was promoted to positions of increasing responsibility. As the head of global business development, he helped transform Beckman into a global leader in medical technology, more than tripling the company’s size in sales and enterprise value.
He also led Beckman’s acquisition of Olympus Diagnostics, the largest industrial acquisition in Japan by a U.S. company. As senior vice president of strategy and business development and a member of the Office of the President, Paul played a key role in Beckman’s successful sale to Danaher Corporation in 2011. Prior to Beckman, Paul was vice president of administration for a digital imaging start-up and spent 10 years in various management positions in commercial banking. Paul graduated with a bachelor’s degree in finance from California State University, Los Angeles and an executive master’s in business administration from Claremont Graduate School. He is a chartered financial analyst and serves on the boards of Axalbion Therapeutics Ltd and Charityvest, and is co-founder of the 1 for 2 Education Foundation.
Dr. Michael Drozd
Food/Agriculture Board Advisor
J.Michael Drozd, combines executive level business, analytic testing, manufacturing, consumer package goods, and entrepreneurial experience. Most recently, Michael was the CEO of AgEagle (NYSE: UAVS). Under Michael’s leadership, AgEagle was the highest performing stock on the NYSE in 2020 and the highest performing UAV stock in the world with >350% increase in share price. Prior to AgEagle, Michael led Eurofins’ global AgBio division, which included hemp and cannabis testing as well as agrigenomics, genetic selection, and microbiome. Michael achieved organic growth of 70% for the division.
Prior to Eurofins, Michael served as President and CEO of Aseptia/Wright Foods growing the company >12,000% in 3.5 years to revenues of $30 million / year which was the #1 fastest growing food company in the US, and #15 on Inc. 500. Michael has a BSEE and Economics from Duke University.He received his Master’s in Optical Engineering from Cambridge University (England). He also has a Master’s degree in Engineering-Economic Systems (Business / Engineering Management) from Stanford University Michael received his Ph.D. from Duke University.
Dr. Jon Vaught
Board Advisor
Dr. Jonathan Vaught is CEO and Founder of Front Range Biosciences™. Previously, he was Director of Assay Development at Velocity Sciences, an IP development company that creates next generation assay technologies for diagnostic applications. He also served as a Senior Product Development Scientist at Beacon Biotechnology, where he led the development of a foodborne pathogen detection platform. Prior to Beacon, Dr. Vaught spent 5 years as a scientist at Somalogic where he helped build and optimize the SOMAscan assay, the world’s largest proteomic based biomarker discovery assay that measures 1000’s of proteins in a single sample.
He brings together a diverse background with expertise in organic synthesis, biochemistry, assay development, proteomics, and analytical chemistry. He is an inventor on two patents and an author on 7 publications in peer reviewed journals. Dr. Vaught received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his BS in chemistry from North Carolina State University.
REGGIE GAUDINO, Ph.D.
Board Advisor
Dr. Reggie Gaudino oversees all scientific research and development for Steep Hill Labs and manages the YnsightTM genetics division. The research from Dr. Gaudino has been peer-reviewed and published, leading to important new discoveries. He is internationally recognized as a leader in genetics science. Dr. Gaudino is a Scientific Advisor for partner company, PathogenDx, where he helps identify and commercialize DNA based testing opportunities. Dr. Gaudino and Steep Hill act as the partner laboratory for PathogenDx product development and validation testing.
Dr. Gaudino received his B.S. in Molecular Biology and Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and he conducted four years of post-doctoral research at the Washington University in St. Louis, studying transcriptional regulation of rRNA. Reggie was one of the first African-American molecular biologists to enter a Ph.D. program in the United States in 1985.
Michael Dovbish
Board Advisor
Mike Dovbish serves as Executive Director of Nutrition Capital Network (NCN) providing strategic guidance and preparing participating companies for NCN Investor Conferences. Since NCN’s inception in 2007, Mike has worked with presenting companies on their business plans, pitch presentations and overall strategy to best position them for growth and investment. He also identifies and introduces potential investors and strategic partners to companies before, during and after the investor meetings.
Mike also serves as a mentor, advisor and consultant to healthy lifestyle and sustainable businesses both in consumer packaged goods and related technology companies. He has worked with entrepreneurs on their business strategy, capital raising, market opportunity assessment, value proposition and partnership development. He received a BA degree in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine and an MBA from Boston University.
Carl Yamashiro, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Carl Yamashiro has spent 25 years working with companies in biotechnology and biomedical diagnostics with a strong emphasis on molecular diagnostics. He worked at Applied Biosystems (now Thermo Fisher) on PCR-based food and environmental assay development. Additionally, Dr. Yamashiro has managed systems development for microarray-based diagnostic systems for both Roche Molecular Systems and Motorola.
Dr. Yamashiro received his B.S. in Biochemistry from UCLA and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Oregon. He was also an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Currently, Carl is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University.
