Speakers

Joe Kiani
Founder, Chairman, and CEO
Masimo Corporation

As the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Masimo Corporation, a global medical technology innovator credited with revolutionizing pulse oximetry and noninvasive patient monitoring, Mr. Kiani has been a beacon for patient safety and innovation in healthcare for more than 20 years. Convinced that the use of adaptive signal processing could solve the problems of motion artifact and signal noise that plagued pulse oximetry—widely recognized as the fifth vital sign—he founded Masimo in 1989 to improve the accuracy of noninvasive patient monitoring. Under his leadership, Masimo has grown from a “garage start up” into a successful publicly traded company (NASDAQ: MASI), employing more than 2,500 people worldwide and providing its market-leading measure-through motion and low perfusion pulse oximetry technology to leading OEM patient monitoring manufacturers spanning the globe, such as Atom, Drager, GE Medical, Medtronic, Mindray, Philips, Spacelabs, and Zoll.

Nimmi Ramanujam, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University

A professor at Duke University since 2005, Professor Nimmi Ramanujam established the Tissue Optical Spectroscopy laboratory, where her research group is innovating on optical strategies to peer into the biological landscape of thick tissues. Technologies being developed in her lab leverage principles of optical spectroscopy, optical sectioning microscopy, and molecular imaging. Her research group is developing and applying these optically based tools for three problems in cancer: cancer screening in resource-limited settings, intra-operative margin assessment to detect residual disease during cancer surgery, and visualizing tumor hypoxia and metabolism in the context of cancer therapy and drug discovery. Ramanujam is leading a multidisciplinary effort to translate these technologies to clinical applications in the breast and cervix. In addition to her academic efforts, Ramanujam has spun out a company, Zenalux, to commercialize several of the technologies developed in her lab.

Stanton J. Rowe
Corporate Vice President, Advanced Technology and Chief Scientific Officer
Edwards Lifesciences Corporation

Stanton J. Rowe is Corporate Vice President, Advanced Technology & Chief Scientific Officer at Edwards Lifesciences Corporation. He previously served as president and CEO of Percutaneous Valve Technology Inc., which was acquired by Edwards in January 2004. Prior to PVT, which he helped to found in 1999, Rowe was corporate vice president of Business Development and Strategic Planning for Datascope Corp. Prior to this, he was vice president of Business Development for Johnson & Johnson’s Interventional Systems Division (JJIS), responsible for the company’s coronary stent development efforts. At JJIS and the related Cordis Corporation, Rowe held a variety of positions with increasing levels of responsibility, including heading the company’s Business Development, Advanced Technology, Worldwide Clinical Research, and Marketing groups. Rowe joined Cordis after having held several positions in product management for various medical device companies. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama. He also sits on the board of directors of both ePacing and Biomerix Corporation. He supports the community sitting on the Boards of the Discovery Science Center, UCI Biomedical Engineering Advisory, UCI Henry Samueli School of Engineering Executive Board, Chapman University Science Leadership Cabinet, Georgia Tech Biomedical Engineering Advisory, and Brown University Biomedical Engineering Advisory.

Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D.
Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Surgery
Director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, UC Irvine

Bruce Tromberg’s research interests are in the development and application of optical imaging and spectroscopy methods for non-invasive monitoring and imaging of physiological processes in cells and tissues. He and his group have developed broadband imaging technologies based on spatial and temporal modulation of light in order to measure the magnitude of light scattering and absorption in thick tissues at depths of several centimeters. Tromberg is applying these techniques to in vivo functional imaging of cancer, vascular disease, and brain function in humans and pre-clinical animal models. A second area of emphasis in the Tromberg lab is in the use of non-linear optical microscopy to generate high resolution functional maps of molecular processes in living cells and tissues. He is developing multi-dimensional technologies based on ultrafast lasers to visualize and quantify cell and tissue physiology with high spatial resolution. These technologies are leading to a better understanding of the dynamics between cells, blood vessels, and extracellular matrix in cancer, vascular disease, and wound healing.  Tromberg has more than 300 publications and 17 patents in Biomedical Optics and Biophotonics. He has received several awards, including the UCI School of Medicine Athalie Clark Research Award, the Coherent Biophotonics Young Investigator Award, OE magazine’s Technology Innovator award, the R&D 100 award, and is a Fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers.