Press release
Illumina Welcomes Alex Aravanis as Chief Technology Officer and Appoints Mostafa Ronaghi to Lead Entrepreneurial Development
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) today announced the appointment of Alex Aravanis as Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Aravanis will be
About this update from Illumina, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":" SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--\nIllumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) today announced the appointment of Alex Aravanis as Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Aravanis will be responsible for leading Illumina’s research and technology development functions and the innovation engine for next-generation sequencing platforms and applications, accelerating technology breakthroughs and translation to the clinic. Dr. Aravanis will join Illumina in early June and will report to Chief Executive Officer, Francis deSouza. Mostafa Ronaghi, who served as Illumina’s Chief Technology Officer, is taking on a new role as Senior Vice President of Entrepreneurial Development, responsible for supporting and catalyzing the expanding genomics entrepreneurial ecosystem.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005731/en/Dr. Alex Aravanis (Photo: Business Wire)\n\nDr. Aravanis brings almost 20 years of experience in leading research and development efforts, spanning basic research and technology development through late stage clinical development, and is returning to Illumina from GRAIL, Inc. which he co-founded, and serves as the Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Research and Development. At GRAIL, he led the teams developing its multi-cancer early detection test by combining high-intensity sequencing approaches of unprecedented breadth and depth, and the latest tools of data science and data engineering, including powerful approaches from machine learning, such as neural networks. He and the GRAIL team created one of the largest clinical study programs ever in genomic medicine to support development of its products.\n\n\nPrior to GRAIL, Dr. Aravanis served in R&D for Illumina and developed multiple technologies, including clinical assays and bioinformatic pipelines for the analysis of RNA and DNA from fixed tissues, whole exome analysis, massively parallel single cell transcriptomics and liquid biopsy using cell-free nucleic acids.\n\n\n“I am humbled and excited to rejoin the Illumina team, especially at a time when unlocking the power of the genome has never been more important,” said Dr. Aravanis. “I look forward to building on Illumina’s existing portfolio of leading products and expansive technology roadmap to further accelerate the impact of sequencing and transform human health through ad...