Our Team
Jesse Salk MD PhD
Chief Executive Officer, Chief Scientific Officer, Board Member
Dr. Salk is a molecular biologist, clinical oncologist, and a cofounder of TwinStrand. He invented and developed TwinStrand’s core Duplex Sequencing Technology with colleagues at the University of Washington. Jesse has authored more than two-dozen peer-reviewed publications in cancer biology and genomics, and has more than 50 issued and pending patents. In addition to his executive and scientific leadership role at TwinStrand, Jesse is an Affiliate Clinical Faculty member at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and sees cancer patients part time at the VA Puget Sound in Seattle. He is Board Certified in Medical Oncology and Internal Medicine. Jesse is a volunteer teacher in science and medicine for students from middle school through post-doctoral levels. He holds an MD/PhD with honors from the University of Washington and a BS in Biology Summa Cum Laude from Brandeis University.
Elena Cant
Chief Operating Officer
Elena Cant leads TwinStrand’s operational organization. She has more than 20 years of diverse business experience, the last 15 of which has focused on life sciences. Elena worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company serving major pharmaceutical and device companies in the US and Europe, followed by global strategic and operational leadership roles at Mead Johnson Nutrition, Hospira, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Elena received her MBA from the University of Chicago.
Jeff Grainger JD
Chief Legal Officer
Jeff Grainger is an attorney, specializing in intellectual property, with more than 25 years’ of experience in early stage technology companies. In addition to his role at TwinStrand, Jeff serves as Chairman of the Board at Signum Surgical and is an advisor to several other early stage medtech companies in the US and abroad. Jeff served as a Managing Partner at The Foundry, a medical device incubator where he played a major role in launching FIRE1, Nuvaira, Twelve, Cotera, eValve, and other successful ventures. Jeff’s earlier positions include Vice President of Corporate Affairs and General Counsel at Xtent and Chief Patent Counsel at Heartport. He previously founded patent automation start-up First to File, served as an attorney at Townsend & Townsend, and was a robotics engineer at Boeing. Jeff holds a JD from the University of Washington and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford.
Kellie Bickel PhD
Vice President of Intellectual Property
Dr. Bickel is a doctoral-level scientist with nearly two decades of intellectual property experience. She works closely with our scientists and business teams to identify and develop key patent positions around our technology and to execute our patent strategy. Kellie has previously worked on nationally recognized legal teams at both Perkins Coie, LLP, and at the University of Washington, where she strategically created and managed patent portfolios for both start-ups and large, publicly traded companies. She holds a PhD in Molecular & Cellular Biology from the University of Washington and is a USPTO-registered patent agent.
Lindsey Williams PhD
Senior Director of Assay Development
Dr. Williams is a molecular biologist and biochemist and has been with TwinStrand since its inception. She leads scientific development of our core Duplex Sequencing biochemistry, as well as new assays and applications. Prior to joining TwinStrand, Lindsey developed diagnostic products at Ariosa Diagnostics, and subsequently Roche Sequencing Solutions. Lindsey’s training includes a BS in Molecular Genetics and a BA in Anthropology at the University of Florida, post graduate research at Mayo Clinic, a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Washington, and a Postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University.
Clint Valentine MS
Director of Computational Biology
Clint Valentine manages bioinformatics analysis, the software development lifecycle and algorithm development as related to Duplex Sequencing data and interpretation. His interests lie in developing new computational methods to interrogate mutational biology and early carcinogenesis. Clint studied at Northeastern University where he earned a BS in Biology, a BS in Environmental Science, and an MS in Bioinformatics prior to joining the Biological Engineering Department at MIT through the Essigmann Lab. At MIT, Clint pioneered methods for applying Duplex Sequencing technology to the study of in vivo mutagenesis and cancer risk assessment. He serves on national leadership committees for genetic toxicology and mentors computational biology trainees through the Northeastern University Co-op internship program.
Brett Fritz MS
Head of Global Sales and Commercial Development
Brett Fritz manages sales and serves as the leader for all commercial development efforts. Brett joined TwinStrand in the spring of 2020 and brings 20 years of experience in both large-scale and start-up biotech environments. A 6-time President’s Club recipient, Brett oversees commercial operations and business development strategy and execution. Prior to TwinStrand, Brett held various commercial development roles at Bio-Rad, Illumina and Qiagen, all of which led to significant revenue growth. He began his career contributing to the growth of start-ups including Nanosphere, Clearant and BioTrove. Brett obtained his BA in Biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his MS in Biotechnology from Northwestern University.
Alex Lindell
Head of Global Marketing
Alex Lindell leads TwinStrand’s Marketing team. He joined TwinStrand in February 2021 and brings more than 20 years of biotech sales and marketing experience. Prior to joining TwinStrand, Alex led Genetic Disease Marketing for Illumina. In eight years at Illumina, Alex led Clinical Product Management, Transplant Diagnostics, Rare Disease Diagnostics, and Pharmacogenomics. Alex studied cell molecular biology and genetics at the University of Maryland and earned his MBA from the University of Utah.
Board of Directors
Chad Waite
Chairman of the Board
Chad Waite leads TwinStrand’s board. He has more than 28 years’ of experience investing in IT and life sciences and serves on the boards of multiple other companies, including NanoString. Chad is the Managing Director of OVP Venture Partners, which has invested in 130 companies, with 53 exits, including 23 IPOs. Notable successes include WatchGuard, Seattle Genetics, and Rosetta Inpharmatics. Prior to joining OVP in 1987, Chad worked in the cardiovascular medical device division of Cobe Laboratories and as a General Partner at H&Q Venture Partners where he invested in IT and life sciences.
Steve Dow
Board Member
Steve Dow’s venture capital investments over the past 37 years have spanned a broad range of technologies and markets, from software to communications technology to life science. Steve has served as an advisor, mentor, and board member for a variety of companies, typically beginning at the concept or seed stage and continuing beyond their IPO. He served as Chairman of the Board at Alder Biopharmaceuticals (ALDR) from its inception until 2018. He is a board member at Dataminr and Digital Ocean. Steve was the founding board member at Citrix Systems (CTXS) from its inception in 1989 until 2015, when its annual revenue was $3B. He has also been an advisor to several departments at Stanford University and on the investment committee at Caltech.
S. Somasegar
Board Member
Soma is a Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group focusing on B2B and enterprise related start-ups. Soma invests across a wide variety of technology areas including machine learning / artificial intelligence, intelligent applications, next-generation cloud infrastructure, multi-sense user interfaces and robotic process automation. More recently, Soma has also been investing in companies at the intersection of life science and computer science where there is high potential for using data, ML and AI to accelerate innovation in this space. Prior to joining Madrona in 2015, Soma had a successful twenty-seven year long career with Microsoft where he most recently was Corporate Vice President of the Developer Division. Soma has long been an angel investor in a wide range of technology start-ups both in the U.S. and internationally.
Jesse Salk MD PhD
Chief Executive Officer, Chief Scientific Officer, Board Member
Dr. Salk is a molecular biologist, clinical oncologist, and a cofounder of TwinStrand. He invented and developed TwinStrand’s core Duplex Sequencing Technology with colleagues at the University of Washington. Jesse has authored more than two-dozen peer-reviewed publications in cancer biology and genomics, and has more than 50 issued and pending patents. In addition to his executive and scientific leadership role at TwinStrand, Jesse is an Affiliate Clinical Faculty member at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and sees cancer patients part time at the VA Puget Sound in Seattle. He is Board Certified in Medical Oncology and Internal Medicine. Jesse is a volunteer teacher in science and medicine for students from middle school through post-doctoral levels. He holds an MD/PhD with honors from the University of Washington and a BS in Biology Summa Cum Laude from Brandeis University.
Scientific Advisors
Lawrence A. Loeb MD PhD
Co-founder, Scientific Advisor
Dr. Loeb’s research for more than 60 years has focused on human cancer. He is a scientific visionary, best known for the concept of a mutator phenotype in cancer, which is the principle that tumors form and evolve resistance to therapy by virtue of their tendency to acquire mutations at an accelerated rate. He has published extensively in the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry, fidelity of DNA replication, creation of artificial enzymes, and Duplex Sequencing. Dr. Loeb graduated from The City College of New York, received an MD degree from New York University, a Post-Doctoral fellowship at NIH, and a PhD from The University of California Berkeley. He is a professor in the Departments of Pathology and Biochemistry at the University of Washington where he served as director of the MD/PHD program for 23 years. He is past president of The American Association of Cancer Research, The Environmental Mutagen Society and a fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Jerald Radich MD
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Radich is a Member of the Clinical Research Division, Director of the Molecular Oncology CLIA Lab and the Kurt Enslein Endowed Chair at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Washington. Dr. Radich’s research laboratory focuses on the molecular biology of response, resistance, and progression in acute and chronic myeloid leukemia. His clinical Molecular Oncology Lab provides the molecular diagnostic support for many institutional, US Intergroup, international, and pharmaceutical trials. Some of his major scientific contributions over the past three decades include being among the first to document the prevalence and significance of mutations in the Ras/MAPK signaling pathway in acute myeloid leukemia and recognition of the importance of measurable residual disease in ALL, AML and CML. He was awarded the International CML Foundation Award in 2017 and the Washington Global Health Alliance Partnership Award in 2019 for his lab’s work on diagnosing and monitoring chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in the developing world. A mere subset of his many past and present leadership roles include: Chair of the Leukemia Translational Medicine Committee of the Southwest Oncology Group, Inaugural Chair of the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Health Leukemia Steering Committee, past member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the NIH Genome Research Institute, past-chair of the CML Committee of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and current member of the European Leukemia Network CML committee. He serves on the Scientific Board of the International CML Foundation and the Max Foundation and leads the Laboratory Committee of the NCI AML Precision Medicine Initiative and the Foundation of the NIH’s program in measurable residual disease in AML. Dr. Radich holds a BS with Honors in Biology from UC San Diego, an MS in Epidemiology from Harvard University School of Public Health, and an MD from UC Davis School of Medicine.
