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About Us

We are targeted sequencing experts unlocking the power of LoopCap™ technology for simple, scalable, target enrichment workflows.

Our Mission

At Molecular Loop, we are unlocking the potential of targeted sequencing, making it accessible to any laboratory with our revolutionary LoopCap™ technology. Our aim is to democratize access to the questions that only NGS can answer by providing simple and scalable target enrichment workflows. With our visionary team dedicated to innovation and scientific excellence, we strive to propel discoveries that reshape the frontiers of healthcare and scientific exploration.

Our Leadership

Our leadership team is composed of NGS veterans who are experts in targeted sequencing.

Greg Porreca, Ph.D.

Founder &
Chief Executive Officer

Eric Boyden, Ph.D.

Co-founder &
Chief Scientific Officer

Pat Saunders

President &
Chief Operating Officer

Board of Directors

Paul Brown
Chris McGuinness
Greg Porreca

Advisory Board

Kevin Marks
Brian Krueger

Our Team

Joe Vieira

Vice President,
Software Engineering

Vanessa Weisman

Controller & Talent Operations

Jack Amaral

Senior Production Technologist

Arjun Patel

Bioinformatics Analyst

Marelize du Toit

Vice President, Product

Danielle Bodnar

Associate Director,
Strategic Accounts

Joseph Juodvalkis

Lab Technician

Aaron Aker, Ph.D.

Scientist

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© 2021 Molecular Loop Biosciences, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Greg Porreca, Ph.D.

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Greg was previously co-founder and CTO of Good Start Genetics, a genetic testing laboratory acquired by Invitae Corporation (NYSE: NVTA). Greg earned his PhD in Genetics in the lab of George Church at Harvard where he invented and built one of the first next-generation DNA sequencing platforms. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology and Computer Science from The College of New Jersey, is a co-author of numerous high-impact publications on genomics technology, and a co-inventor on over 40 issued and pending patents.

In his free time, Greg loves hiking and skiing with his family in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Eric Boyden, Ph.D.

Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer

Eric previously was Principal Scientist at Invitae Corporation and Good Start Genetics, where he led the development of automated high-throughput genetic assays and analysis algorithms for clinical NGS applications. Eric earned a BS in Molecular Biology at the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in Genetics at Harvard University, trained in next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics during a postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital, has co-authored several gene discovery papers in prominent journals, and is an inventor on several pending or issued patents.

When not working he likes to go camping in western Massachusetts or swimming on Cape Cod with his family.

Pat Saunders

President & Chief Operating Officer

Pat was previously Technical Project Manager at Ovia Health and HighRes Biosolutions and Manager of Laboratory Automation at Good Start Genetics. He has overseen the development and delivery of numerous automated HTP platforms for academic and commercial use around the world. He holds a BS in Neurobiology and Neurosciences from Northeastern University and graduate credit in Computer Science and Business Management from the Harvard Extension School.

Pat spends his free time with his family on Cape Cod and mountain biking in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Paul Brown, Ph.D.

Board of Directors

Following a post-doctoral fellowship at Caltech, Paul joined Roche in 1986. He held several leadership roles within the pharmaceutical division, including Lifecycle Leader for Tamiflu® and Xenical® in Switzerland, Vice President of Sales and Marketing in Canada, General Manager in Sweden. In 2010 Paul transitioned into the Diagnostics Division as President and Chief Executive Officer of Roche Molecular Diagnostics where he substantially grew its core businesses of virology, blood screening and infectious diseases, while improving the medical value and increasing testing efficiency in the areas of microbiology, oncology and genomics. Before retiring from Roche at the end of 2020 Paul was Head of Roche Molecular Solutions and responsible for the Company’s Molecular Diagnostics, Tissue Diagnostics and Sequencing Solutions Business Units globally. 

Since 2020 Paul has served in an Advisory, or Board capacity to the following organisations: Decheng Capital, Adela, Mammoth Biosciences, End Point Health and Ontera.

Chris McGuiness

Board of Directors

Chris has spent the majority of his career as an entrepreneur and business operator in the life science and telecommunications fields. As Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Kapa Biosystems, Chris helped build the business from the ground up, across multiple offices, until the sale of Kapa to Roche in 2015. Prior to Kapa, Chris was a Co-Founder and director of ECHO, a broadband network engineering firm established in 2000 with offices in Europe and Asia. After growing to 300 employees and 100 million in revenue, Keppel Communications acquired ECHO in 2003. Chris spent the first part of his career as a broadband design and construction manager in Malaysia and Spain.

Kevin Marks

Advisory Board

Kevin Marks currently serves as Chief Legal Officer/General Counsel at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), where he oversees Legal, Intellectual Property and Human Resources.

Before joining PICI, Marks was General Counsel at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), where he was responsible for Legal, Human Resources, Grants Management and IT. Marks joined CIRM in 2021 after 14 years at Roche Diagnostics in the therapeutics and diagnostics areas, serving as Vice President and Head of Legal and Compliance at Roche Molecular Solutions (encompassing molecular diagnostics, tissue diagnostics and sequencing) and Vice President and General Counsel at Roche Molecular Diagnostics. In these roles, Marks oversaw teams in general law, employment law, compliance and intellectual property. He also managed the business area’s global litigation portfolio, coordinated legal and compliance support for nine U.S. states, as well as in Europe and Africa, and directed the acquisition and legal integration of six startup companies. Prior to that, Marks served in Roche’s pharmaceutical side for nine years as Vice President, General Counsel at Roche Palo Alto, LLC.

He earned his undergraduate AB degree in International Affairs and Russian at Lafayette College and his law degree at Villanova University.

Joe Vieira

Vice President of Software Engineering

Joe is a software engineering leader, technical advisor and software architect. He recently served as Senior Vice President of R&D at PatientPing prior to their exit to Appriss Health, and Principal Architect at Ovia Health. Joe has developed and led teams which have built nationwide real time patient surveillance systems and health telemetry systems. Joe has contributed to multiple standards bodies including DirectTrust and W3C, where the committee he served on was recently awarded an Emmy for standardizing font technology for web and TV devices. Joe holds a BS in Biology from Clark University, a Masters in Computer Science from WPI and credits in Data Science from SNHU.

Joe spends his free time riding bikes, hiking and generally being outside in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Vanessa Weisman

Controller & Talent Operations

Vanessa started her career at Ernst & Young and Arthur Anderson in Public Accounting in NYC. She then joined Axiom and took on several roles before becoming the Director of Finance. After moving to Massachusetts, Vanessa started her own bookkeeping company in MA and supported a variety of clients’ accounting and operational needs, which is what brought her to Molecular Loop in 2019.Vanessa joined Molecular Loop full time in 2021. Vanessa earned her MBA and a Masters in Professional Accounting from Rutgers University, and is a CPA licensed in NYC and MA.

Vanessa enjoys the outdoors with her family and participating in Peloton Power Zone challenges.

Jack Amaral

Senior Production Technologist

Jack Amaral is the Senior Production Technologist at Molecular Loop Biosciences his time here has given him extensive experience in target capture, library preparation, and Next Generation Sequencing methods. His expertise includes manufacturing Molecular Loop Target Capture Kits, assisting in customer field support, and contributing to the implementation of the company’s Quality Management system for ISO13485 certification. Jack enjoys working in a collaborative environment and is dedicated to his job.

When he’s not working, he likes to go fishing and relax. His goal is to continue growing as a leader in the bioscience industry and make meaningful contributions to the success of Molecular Loop Biosciences.

Arjun Patel

Bioinformatics Analyst

Arjun earned a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University and went on to get his MS in Computer Engineering. He interned at Merck (MRL) during his masters, working on identifying drug targets for Alzheimer’s Disease.

During his free time, Arjun likes to spend time with family and loves to explore new places! He is an avid Boston sports fan.

Marelize du Toit

Vice President of Product

Marelize joins Molecular Loop from Roche Diagnostics, where she was most recently responsible for NGS sample preparation product development and commercialization for the KAPA portfolio. Marelize has a BTech in Food Technology from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town, South Africa. 

Outside of work, Marelize enjoys all that Cape Town has to offer, and is a serial collector of hobbies.

Danielle Bodnar

Senior NGS Sales Specialist

Danielle has 8 years of experience supporting NGS technology and products. Before joining Molecular Loop, she was at seqWell, Inc., where she helped commercialize their novel library prep technology and expand their business on the West Coast. She was previously a Sequencing Solutions Specialist at Roche Diagnostics and Sales Consultant at Kapa Biosystems. Danielle earned her BS in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Outside of work, Danielle loves to go skiing at Lake Tahoe, travel to new places, and see live music with her friends in San Francisco.

Joseph Juodvalkis

Lab Technician

Joseph earned a BS in Biology from the University of Dayton and went on to Boston University where he earned an MS in Biomedical Forensic Sciences. While at BU, Joseph completed his thesis research in forensic DNA using a probabilistic genotyping software. While doing so, he also gained extensive lab work experience in forensic DNA typing.

Joseph is a diehard Chicago White Sox fan. Aside from watching baseball, in his free time, he enjoys fishing, exploring Boston, and spending time with family and friends.

Aaron Aker, Ph.D.

Scientist

Aaron earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University as an NSF graduate fellow in Biological and Biomedical Sciences where he focused on establishing technologies to survey the nascent translatome of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii using next-generation sequencing. Prior to graduate school, Aaron received his BS in biology from UMass Dartmouth and worked as a research associate at UMass Medical School studying a wide-array of human viruses. Aaron has co-authored several functional genomics papers focusing primarily on infectious disease pathways.

In his free time, you’ll find Aaron with his family exploring the outdoors.