Executive Leadership
As Chief Business Officer, Nurjana is responsible for Claritas’s business development and partnering. Prior to co-founding Claritas, Nurjana was Associate Director of Strategic Initiatives and Business Development in the Technology and Innovation Development Office (TIDO) at Boston Children’s Hospital. In that capacity she facilitated partnerships between BCH and other entities to support BCH’s clinical and research mission, including the Life Technologies investment that resulted in Claritas. In addition Nurjana facilitated transactions with Shire to support rare disease research and Pfizer to develop bio-therapeutics. As a Licensing Manager at TIDO, she managed several hundred patents and was involved in over 100 transactions, including launching a start-up, licensing agreements, collaborations, material transfer agreements, and confidentiality agreements. Nurjana was awarded her BA in Biology with distinction from Swarthmore College and her PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Mary Ellen Cortizas joined Claritas as a founding member after twenty-eight years in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, including the last sixteen years as Administrative Director. In that role, Ms. Cortizas directed operations of all clinical laboratory programs with a $44m operating budget and $165m gross revenue including 4 divisions and more than 200 employees. Mary Ellen oversaw both the creation and multiple expansions of the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory Lab that has become the foundation for clinical operations at Claritas. She has participated in the evaluation, selection and implementation of multiple Laboratory and Hospital Information Systems. She represented Laboratory Medicine on oversight committees for Clinical Information Systems and Regulatory Readiness, and for the Human Resources Advisory committee. She has extensive expertise in state and federal regulation of clinical laboratories, including more than 20 successful inspections by the Joint Commission, the American Society of Blood Banks, and the FDA. During her time at BCH, she oversaw strategic planning that resulted in more than $50 million in sustained departmental improvements. She and the Clinical Genetics division chief submitted and were awarded a grant creating the BEST initiative (Bringing Expertise to Selecting Tests) and funded a group of lab professionals, clinicians, and genetic counselors to create practice guidelines for high complexity molecular tests. As a 15-year member of the Laboratory Directors forum of the Child Healthcare Corporation, Mary Ellen collaborates with her peers to develop standards of best practice in pediatric-centered clinical laboratories. Mary Ellen taught Laboratory Management at Northeastern University and has lectured on multiple topics including quality management, human resource recruitment and retention strategies, and organizational leadership and structure. She served on and chaired an American Society of Clinical Pathologists’ registration exam committee, preparing and analyzing certification exams. She obtained her BS in Biology from Tufts University and her JD from Suffolk University Law School.
John’s career has spanned pharmaceutical, next-gen sequencing, and genetic testing industries. Joining Claritas Genomics in 2014 as Chief Technology Officer, he has spearheaded novel genetic assays using NGS for diagnosing pediatric diseases and applying DNA sequencing to clinical problems. At Nabsys, he served as Head of Assay Development for three years and advanced the mapping and sequencing of DNAs hundreds of kilobases long using fully solid-state nanodetectors. Before that, he was Senior Director of Genomic Research at Helicos BioSciences for four years, helping to develop the first commercial single-molecule, next-generation sequencing platform and applying it to a range of DNA and RNA sequencing applications. These sequencing endeavors followed 20 years at Pfizer where he applied molecular biology and genetic approaches to identify novel therapeutic targets, to establish the genetic basis of drug response, and to characterize the genetics of drug-induced adverse events. Prior to joining industry, he was a Research Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology at Brown University researching lambda site-specific DNA recombination, DNA bending, and protein-DNA interactions. This followed a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Chemistry, in which RNA and DNA structure and chemistry were studied. His BS in chemistry is from Yale University.
Marcia Nizzari has over 30 years of experience as a software architect, technical manager, and CIO/CTO. Prior to joining Claritas, she was Vice President of Engineering at PatientsLikeMe, Inc., a social network and research platform for patients with life-altering conditions such as ALS or Multiple Sclerosis. Over the past 13 years, she has held lead technologist positions in several biomedical institutes and companies, including the Whitehead Institute, Cambridge Research & Instrumentation, and Good Start Genetics, another clinical diagnostic laboratory. For six years, she was Director of Informatics, Program in Medical & Population Genetics, at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, where she was Co-Investigator on several large research grants, including the NHLBI CARe project, which provided a resource for meta analyses of phenotypic and genotypic information over eleven large cardiovascular cohorts, such as the Framingham Heart Study, Jackson Heart Study, and ARIC. She is a listed author on several highly cited genetics papers, and is first inventor on two broad software patents. Marcia has a master’s degree in computer science from Boston University, where she teaches Enterprise Architecture in the graduate computer science program. Her principal computer science interests are semantic representation and adaptive systems, two areas that are highly applicable to genomics.
Mr. Robert M. Palladino, MBA, Babson College, has extensive finance and operations experience within the healthcare industry. Before joining Claritas Genomics in 2015, Mr. Palladino held numerous roles in the medical field, including executive level positions at Bionevia, LLC, a discovery stage pharmaceutical company; CORRONA Holding, Inc, a medical data company in the development of observational registries of primarily autoimmune diseases that improve the R&D process and advance post regulatory approval market intelligence; PatientsLikeMe, Inc., a commercial business platform of community based data collection and sharing that can improve the lives of patients diagnosed with life-changing diseases; Microsulis Medical Limited, a commercial microwave ablation platform technology company in oncology and women’s healthcare; BioSphere Medical, Inc., a commercial polymer platform company for oncology and women’s healthcare; and Coretek, Inc., a fiber optics manufacturer for telecommunications and medical applications.
Board of Directors
Scientific Advisory Board
Intern in Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, 1982-1983
Resident in Neurology, Barnes Hospital, 1984-1985
Resident in Child Neurology, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, 1985-1987
Junior Assistant Resident in Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, 1983-1984
Postdoctoral Fellow of Dale Purves, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University School of Medicine, 1987-1980
Dr. Pomeroy graduated from Miami University and was the first graduate of the M.D., Ph.D. program of the University of Cincinnati. He trained in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and in Child Neurology at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. In 1989, he won the Child Neurology Society Young Investigator Award for work done as a postdoctoral fellow with Dale Purves at Washington University. He currently is the Chair of the Department of Neurology and Neurologist-in-Chief of Boston Children’s Hospital, the Bronson Crothers Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and the Director of the Eunice K. Shriver National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development funded Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Director, Comprehensive Epilepsy Center
Co-Director, Genetic Pharmacology Service
Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Tracy A. Glauser, MD, is director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and co-director of the Genetic Pharmacology Service at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and professor of pediatrics in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Dr. Glauser received his medical degree, cum laude, from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA. He completed his residency in pediatrics at the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD, and fellowship in child neurology at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Glauser completed a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke research fellowship in pediatric neurology and was a fellow in epilepsy and electroencephalography at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dr. Glauser has authored and co-authored more than 130 articles and book chapters, been involved with the development of 6 evidence based guidelines about epilepsy therapy and given over 150 invited lectures throughout the world. He has been the principal investigator on multiple NIH grants. Currently, Dr. Glauser directs the NIH funded Childhood Absence Epilepsy clinical trial involving 32 pediatric centers around the United States. Dr. Glauser’s fields of expertise are pediatric neurology, pediatric epilepsy, clinical pharmacology and pharmacogenetics.
Albert Seymour received his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Delaware and MS degree in Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University where he focused on the molecular genetics of cancer in the laboratory of Dr. Bert Vogelstein. He then went on to receive his PhD and post-doctoral training in Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh under the direction of Dr. Michael Gorin where he studied the genetics of rare ophthalmic disease.
In 1997, Albert took a position at Pfizer in Groton, CT where he spent the next 14 years directing his team in the application of human genetics and computational biology to discover and develop novel therapeutics aimed at targeting diabetes, inflammatory diseases, and cancer.
In 2011, Albert moved to Shire in Lexington, MA as the Head of Drug Discovery and Translational Research where, in three years, he doubled the rare disease Discovery portfolio. In 2014, Albert assumed the role as the Global Head of Research and Nonclinical Development. In this role, he leads a team of scientists who are responsible for delivering a sustained portfolio of rare disease focused therapeutic projects from idea to IND. In addition his team supports Shire’s R&D portfolio across all therapeutic areas with bioanalytics, toxicology, and DMPK.
Clinical Team
Dr. Wu brings more than 30 years of experience in molecular diagnostics to Claritas Genomics, creating Boston Children’s Molecular Diagnostic lab nearly 20 years ago as the sole staff member. Dr. Wu and his team designed a 60-mer oligo DNA chip for high-resolution genomic DNA copy number variant analysis. The test was used to detect sub-microscopic genomic deletions and duplications associated with developmental delay, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorders and was one of first U.S. CLIA certified labs to use this advanced technique. The lab’s work provided the groundwork for the American College of Medical Genetics to issue clinical guidelines in 2010 for the use of chromosomal microarray analysis in the primary evaluation of developmental delay. The outgrowth of this work allowed development of a rapid and cost-effective assay for copy number variation at 16p11.2 resulting in U.S. patent #8,003,326. Since 2010, Dr. Wu and his team have worked closely with physician experts at Boston Children’s on research and development of Next Generation Sequencing. Dr. Wu is active in training postdoctoral fellows, medical students, and residents through the Harvard Medical School Clinical Genetics Training Program and Molecular Pathologist Training Program. He also is on the Faculty at Fudan University in Shanghai and is active in building high quality molecular diagnostic and academic programs in China. Dr. Wu is credited on more than 100 publications by his research team and collaborations. Dr. Wu received the Master of Medicine in Medical Genetics at Shanghai Medical University, China before immigrating to the US. He completed his clinical genetics fellowship training in the Harvard Genetics Training Program. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Medical Genetics and Assistant Professor in Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Kellogg is currently the Director of Quality Programs and Associate Director of Chemistry, Dept. of Laboratory Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, in Boston Massachusetts. His research focuses on adaptation of mass spectrometry to clinical assays and biomarkers of cognitive function. He has over 50 publications. From January 1999 until August of 2007, Dr. Kellogg was a research biochemist on active duty in the US Army. His first assignment was in the Nutrition Division of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Natick Massachusetts. Here he worked primarily with nutritional modulation of physical and cognitive performance and the clinical chemistry associated with monitoring performance. Through the Army’s Long Term Higher Education and Training program, Dr. Kellogg completed his post-doctoral training in Clinical Chemistry at Boston Children’s Hospital. His final assignment with the Army was at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Ft. Detrick, Maryland, where he served as the Field Team Leader for the Institutes Diagnostic Systems Division. In addition he was the assistant director for the National Laboratory at USAMRIID, supporting the nation’s Bioterrorism Laboratory Response Network. Prior to his active duty tour, Dr. Kellogg was an Associate Professor at Ferris State University in Big Rapids Michigan, teaching clinical chemistry, phlebotomy and quality courses in the medical technology and medical laboratory technician programs. He received his doctorate in biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1996 where he studied the adaptation of fish to environments of differing salinity. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Technology from Michigan Technological University. Dr. Kellogg is active in the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), currently serving as Secretary for the Northeast section, is on the executive board for the Nutrition Division and on the board of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry.
David Miller is a medical geneticist and one of our Medical Directors at Claritas Genomics. He is also an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Miller’s experience as a clinician who orders genetic tests and provides results directly to patients, combined with expertise in developing and performing clinical laboratory diagnostic assays, provides him with a unique and valuable perspective. Dr. Miller lends his considerable clinical experience to clinical interpretation and reporting of Claritas’ genetic testing. He has published numerous articles on the topic of clinical genetic testing, including diagnostic yield and clinical utility. He received his MD and PhD degrees from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, completed a residency in Pediatrics at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and residency/fellowship in medical genetics and clinical molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School. He is board-certified in Clinical Genetics and Clinical Molecular Genetics.
Yiping Shen is an ABMG-board certified medical director at Claritas. He has over 20 years’ experience in human genetic research and over 10 years’ experience in clinical molecular testing service. He also directed the R&D activity at the Genetic Diagnostic Laboratory (GDL) at Boston Children’s Hospital and developed and updated many tests including MLPA based targeted copy number tests, the microarray-based whole genome CNV+SNP test, as well as Sanger- and Next Generation Sequencing-based tests. He co-directs the R&D group at Claritas. He has published numerous articles on the discovery of novel disease genes and contributed to a better understanding of genotype-phenotype correlations that are the basis for clinical interpretation and counseling. His research interests in understanding the genetic causes of pediatric genetic disorders, particularly developmental disorders, provide unique value for the genetic diagnostic testing service for the pediatric patient population at Claritas. Dr. Shen is a reviewer for more than twenty academic journals and had been invited for countless talks nationally and internationally. He also provides training for research and clinical fellows and teaches for the Harvard Genetic Training Program from which he was initially trained. He is an assistant professor at the Pathology Department at Harvard Medical School. He is also on the Faculty at Jiaotong University in Shanghai. Dr. Shen received the Master of Science in Developmental Biology at Wuhan University, China. He received his PhD in Pharmacology from Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York. He did his clinical genetics fellowship training in the Harvard Medical School Genetics Training Program. He is board-certified in Clinical Molecular Genetics. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Medical Genetics, a fellow of American College of Medical Genetics and a leadership committee member of Chinese Medical Doctor Association.
Dr. Hosseini joined Claritas Genomics and Boston Children’s Hospital Department of laboratory Medicine/ Harvard Medical School in 2015 as an Assistant Laboratory Director after completing his ABMG fellowship in clinical molecular genetics at University of Miami/Harvard Medical School Genetics Training Program. He received his MD from Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Iran and his PhD from Panjab University, India. He finished his postdoctoral research fellowship at Ohio State University, Wexner Medical Center, Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Hosseini’s research interests including cancer genetics, epigenetics and adoption of genomic technologies with advanced clinical interpretation for their effective use in personalized medicine.
From Sept. 2009-Oct. 2011, Dr. Hosseini was Assistant Professor at National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Department of Medical Genetics, Tehran, Iran. Hosseini has more than 20 publications and had main authorship of nine out of 30 chapters of the 2013 publication “Handbook on Medical Genetics and Genetic Counseling”.
Natalie Vena joined Claritas Genomics in 2014 as a Laboratory Genetic Counselor. She is responsible for variant interpretation for Claritas’ Next Generation Sequencing tests, including the Claritas Clinical Exome and the Region of Interest tests. She is also a key member of the Product Development team. Ms. Vena joined Claritas from Emory Genetics Laboratory where she assisted with variant analysis and reporting for the molecular genetics and cytogenetics laboratories. Before that, she served as a Clinical Research Assistant at the Center for Cancer Risk Assessment at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA. Ms. Vena was awarded her Masters of Science in Genetic Counseling from Boston University in 2012 where her Capstone focused on Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Hypermobility Type. She obtained her Certification from the American Board of Genetic Counseling in 2012.
Ms. Seman is a board-certified Genetic Counselor at Claritas Genomics with over 10 years of clinical genetic counseling experience. She holds a Masters in Medical Genetics from the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Ann began her genetic counseling career by working at the Eastern Maine Medical Center where she provided genetic counseling services for general genetics, pediatric, prenatal, and preconception clinics as well as the multidisciplinary clinics including Metabolic, Muscular Dystrophy, Cleft Lip and Palate, and Hemophilia. Ann joined the DNA Diagnostic Laboratory in Boston Children’s Hospital in 2007 as a Laboratory Genetic Counselor. She split her time between this role and a Clinical Genetic Counselor position in the general pediatric clinic at Boston Children’s. Ann is an original Claritas Genomics team member, having made the move when the DNA Diagnostic Laboratory became Claritas Genomics in 2013. Ann continues in her clinical Genetic Counseling role at Boston Children’s Hospital in addition to her Laboratory Genetic Counselor role with Claritas Genomics.
