Management Team

Mr. Powers has spent the past 20 years in pharmaceutical services businesses. He spent 18 years in executive management at PRA International, a global clinical research organization serving pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies. He oversaw PRA's growth from a niche data management services provider to a full service clinical trials management organization, and expanded its operations and customer base from US-centric to international. Mr. Powers launched PRA's oncology therapeutic focus, a market in which PRA continues to be a leader, and he was instrumental in strategic planning and eight acquisitions. During his tenure, the company grew from less than $1 million to more than $450 million in annual sales and a global work force of more than 3,000 employees. He is a member of several boards in the pharmaceutical services sector and advises seed venture capital funds. Before joining PRA, Mr. Powers was responsible for identifying and managing medical technology startup businesses for University Technology Corporation. Mr. Powers received a B.S. in Administration and Management Science from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Dr. Campbell has been an entrepreneur and an economic consultant throughout his 40-year business career. He began in 1968 with an aviation consulting firm in New York and was promoted to Vice President in charge of the firm's Washington office. In 1977, he was co-founder of Midway Airlines, Inc., the first new scheduled start-up carrier after airline deregulation. At Midway, he served as Chief Financial Officer and participated heavily in raising $5.7 million of venture capital to fund Midway's start-up. He returned to the aviation consulting business in 1983 and has been founder and co-founder of two specialized consulting firms. He recently retired from his position as chairman of The Campbell-Hill Aviation Group, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. Throughout his consulting career he has assisted numerous start-up companies with business plan preparation, financial forecasting, detailed market analyses, and strategic planning studies. Currently he serves as Vice Chairman and acting Chief Financial Officer of Dynamic Literacy, LLC; Chairman and member of the advisory board of Targeson, LLC, a UVa-based biotechnology company; acting CFO and investor in BioMotion Analytics, LLC; and is a member of the advisory board of UVa's Heart and Vascular Center. He earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University, an MBA from the University of Western Ontario, and a Ph.D. in business administration from Columbia University.

Dr. Blackman is co-founder of HemoShear and co-inventor of the HemoShear technology. He is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia. Since August of 2002, Dr. Blackman has led a National Institute of Health (NIH)-funded research program investigating the role of the hemodynamic environment in regulating vascular endothelial cell biology in atherosclerosis. Prior to joining UVa, Dr. Blackman spent 3.5 years training as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Vascular Research Division of Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. There he developed the first cell-culture-based model to simulate human hemodynamic flow patterns on isolated human endothelial cells, which laid the foundation for current research identifying the importance of precise hemodynamic conditions for regulating arterial vascular biology. Dr. Blackman has 19 peer-reviewed publications, served on UVa's School of Engineering and Sciences Dean's Research Advisory Committee, is a member of the Robert M. Berne Cardiovascular Research Center, is a peer reviewer for more than 12 scientific journals, and is a member of the American Heart Association Bioengineering & Biotechnology study section. Dr. Blackman obtained a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Drexel University and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Wamhoff is co-founder of HemoShear and co-inventor of the HemoShear technology. He is a tenure track assistant professor and leads an NIH-funded laboratory that studies vascular disease at the Cardiovascular Division of the University of Virginia’s Department of Medicine. Dr. Wamhoff began his fellowship at UVa to develop rodent models to investigate the molecular mechanisms of genes underlying vascular disease. During this time, he was also employed by Setagon, Inc., a Charlottesville start-up, as lead scientist to develop a novel drug-eluting stent for the treatment of blood vessel stenosis in humans. While at UVa, he has obtained more than $3.3 million funding from Pfizer, the American Heart Association, NIH, and other organizations to study the fundamental mechanisms that regulate smooth muscle cell phenotypic switching in vascular disease. Dr. Wamhoff obtained a B.S. in biology at Rhodes College and a minor in business administration, and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri where he developed swine models of diabetes and atherosclerosis. Dr. Wamhoff submitted more than 15 patents related to regulation of smooth muscle cell phenotypic switching in vascular disease, leading to licensing of the technology in 2007 to a major device company. Dr. Wamhoff has authored or coauthored 32 publications, two book chapters, and 3 commentaries. Dr. Wamhoff serves as peer reviewer for more than 10 major scientific journals and as grant reviewer for the American Heart Association. He has been the recipient of multiple awards, including the Robert M. Berne Trainee Achievement Award, the American Physiological Society Young Cardiovascular Investigator Award, the University of Virginia Department of Medicine Award for Excellence in Research and the 2008 Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB) Irvine Paige Young Investigator Research Award. Dr. Wamhoff devotes philanthropic time to the community by promoting health awareness as a local member of the board of directors for the American Heart Association.

Dr. LeCluyse recently served as the Chief Scientific Officer of CellzDirect, a biotech company and wholly-owned subsidiary of Invitrogen based in the Research Triangle Park, NC. He currently holds Adjunct Faculty appointments at the University of North Carolina (Curriculum in Toxicology) and the University of Virginia Health System (Department of Surgery). Prior to his position at CellzDirect, Dr. LeCluyse was an Associate Professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where he conducted NIH-funded research focused on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of drug-induced changes in liver enzymes. The findings from his academic research served as the scientific basis for the current USFDA guidance for conducting in vitro studies on drug-drug interactions. Dr. LeCluyse received his doctoral degree in Biochemistry from the University of Kansas and completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Toxicology/Pharmacology at University of Kansas Medical School. It was during his graduate and post-graduate education that he began using primary mammalian hepatocytes to develop in vitro model systems to study drug effects in humans and preclinical toxicology species. Dr. LeCluyse has published and/or contributed to over 80 peer-reviewed research articles, invited reviews, and book chapters. He is renowned for his work in the isolation and culture of primary hepatocytes and is a recognized expert in the areas of liver enzyme induction and nuclear receptor regulation of hepatic drug transport and metabolism. Dr. LeCluyse also served as an advisor for the 2004/2005 FDA working group focused on revising the guidance document on in vitro drug-drug interactions.

Dr. Hastings obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia. Her research focused on elucidating mechanisms of cross-talk and phenotypic modulation of endothelial and smooth muscle cells during initiating stages of atherosclerosis. While developing HemoShear's technology, she has characterized and validated a novel in vitro-based human endothelial and smooth muscle co-culture model whereby hemodynamic shear stress patterns derived from atherosclerosis-prone or atherosclerosis-protective regions are applied to the endothelium. From this model, she identified that the endothelial cell secreted factor Interleukin-8 is released at higher levels during atheroprone flow, and examined its role in modulating the smooth muscle cell inflammatory phenotype, a critical and unexplored feature of the disease. Dr. Hastings is first author on two peer-reviewed publications, is co-author on five additional high-impact publications, and has presented at international meetings. Prior to obtaining her Ph.D. at UVa, she obtained a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering from North Carolina State University.

Mr. Orange is a consultant to HemoShear, where he is responsible for all IT, facilities, and equipment-related purchases and functions. He has spent the past 15 years in various executive management, entrepreneurial, and business consultant roles. Mr. Orange began in 1993 as founder of HSM Inc., a mid-line retail business. He solely raised $1.5 million equity to fund the company’s start, and eventually sold the company’s technology. In 1996, Mr. Orange went to work as a Sr. Consultant for KPMG LLC focusing on organizational development, change management, operational infrastructure (automated IT design and development), and ERP implementations. Mr. Orange was quickly promoted to Executive Manager and later assisted KPMG with creating their first national eLearning Practice and building out the Cisco/Oracle partnership that included ten, 100M broadband testing centers. He managed teams for major federal contracts including: NASA, DOJ, FBI, DOE, DOD, NSA, NSF and the FAA. In 2001, Mr. Orange left KPMG/BearingPoint to head up an eLearning Practice as an Executive Manager with Arthur Anderson, where he successfully managed contracts with NIH, FDA, TSA, CDC, FAA, DOEd, FBI, and the Executive Offices of the White House. During this period Mr. Orange designed, developed, and implemented many web-based processes to streamline operational processes and reporting, one of which won the FDA the 2001 eGov Award. Mr. Orange joined the University of Virginia in 2002 and currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for the Robert M. Berne Cardiovascular Research Center, where he manages 16 research laboratories occupying 30,000 sq ft and that employs over 150 staff. Mr. Orange provides management and oversight for over $12 million annually in research support, as well as endowments and investments in excess of $10 million. Mr. Orange received a B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Radford University.