Meet the Nabsys Leadership Team

Barrett Bready

Founder/CEO

Barrett is Founder and CEO of Nabsys. He is passionate about the impact that advanced technology can have on the understanding of disease as well as on its diagnosis and treatment. He has raised $150 million to realize a new way of analyzing DNA that uses proprietary solid-state electronic nanodetectors to analyze very long molecules, with an initial focus on genomic structural variation.

Barrett is an adjunct professor at Brown University where he lectures on the rapidly evolving business of life sciences. He serves as a commissioner of the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission, a major land redevelopment initiative in downtown Providence, RI with a focus on life sciences and other high-technology sectors. He has received numerous awards including, in 2011, Rhode Island Innovator of the Year, and in 2018, a career achievement award from the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Barrett graduated from the highly competitive Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) at Brown University where he received an M.D. and an Sc.B. in Physics and won the undergraduate physics award (the Lindsay Prize) and the Galletti Prize for physics in medicine.

When he is not working, teaching, or volunteering, Barrett enjoys spending time with his wife and two young children. He also enjoys architecture and collecting antique/ancient sculpture. He has visited 60 countries, including Spain, where he has run with the Bulls in Pamplona.

John Oliver, PhD

Chief Technology Officer

John Oliver has directed the research efforts at Nabsys since he joined the company in March 2007. Dr. Oliver brings over 25 years of research expertise to Nabsys. His diverse experience includes synthetic organic chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, surface chemistry, and microarray technology.

He previously served as Chief Scientific Officer at GeneSpectrum Inc. an array based sequencing company that he co-founded in 2000 with two colleagues from Brown University until it was acquired by Nabsys. GeneSpectrum utilized novel probe designs incorporating non-natural nucleosides to increase the information content of oligonucleotide arrays by over 1000-fold. Prior to founding GeneSpectrum, Dr. Oliver was an assistant professor of Chemistry at Brown University.

His research group focused on developing methods of performing non-natural amino acid mutagenesis, identifying novel catalysis mechanisms, and investigating biosynthetic pathways for terpene natural products. Dr. Oliver earned his MS and PhD from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and received his BS in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. In his spare time, and depending on the season, Dr. Oliver enjoys research into the feeding habits of several species of trout using synthetic food sources of his own making, or investigating the optimal snowpack density for high speed flotation.

Justin Bingham

Chief Commercial Officer

Justin is responsible for the commercialization of Nabsys’ OhmX platform and the democratization of structural variant analysis. He was previously part of CENTOGENE GmbH Executive Leadership Team as the Senior Vice President of Business Development where he managed the company’s commercial business.

Prior to CENTOGENE, Justin was the Head of Business Development at Synthetic Genomics, Inc. a synthetic biology company responsible for the launch and commercialization of the first bench top DNA assembly system. Justin has held scientific roles at both the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) and the Exploratory Technologies Department at Pfizer, Inc.

Justin received a B.A. in molecular, cellular, developmental biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an M.B.A. from the Rady School of Business at the University of California, San Diego. Outside of work, Justin is an avid sailor with dreams of spending more time on the high seas.

Shaun McMeans

Chief Financial Officer

Shaun leads the Nabsys’ finance and administrative functions. Shaun was the Chief Financial Officer of HTG Molecular Diagnostics, Inc., a publicly traded life science tools, diagnostics and therapeutic development company from 2012 through 2023.

Prior to joining HTG, Shaun was Vice President of Finance of Securaplane Technologies, Inc., an aerospace product supply company and division of Meggitt PLC, an aerospace, defense and energy conglomerate, and a financial consultant working both in an individual capacity and as a partner for Tatum LLC, a consulting company. In addition, Shaun was the Chief Financial Officer for The Long Companies, a full service residential and commercial real estate division of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. Shaun worked for over five years at LXU Healthcare, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of specialty surgical equipment, as Chief Financial and Operating Officer.

In his early career, Shaun worked in roles of increasing responsibility, including Director of Finance, for Burnham Holdings, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of residential and commercial hydronic heating equipment. Shaun received his B.S. in Accounting from The Pennsylvania State University. Shaun enjoys the outdoors and riding a motorcycle in his spare time.

Richard H. Lussier

Chief Operations Officer

Rich is a globally experienced biotechnology tools industry executive leading teams of 10 to 250 people, business sizes from first sale to $300 million in annual turnover, and products from capital equipment to cloud-delivered enterprise bioinformatics solutions. Richard was most recently a General Manager and Head of Product Innovation and Strategic Commercialization for The Jackson Laboratory. Richard has held several other key roles in product development and services, commercialization and general management for Qiagen, Seven Bridges Genomics, CLC bio, RainDance, CellBiosciences, among others.

Steve Nurnberg

EVP Product Development

Steve Nurnberg leads product development at Nabsys. He is a 40-year veteran of life science instrumentation and consumables. Steve has an extensive track record of innovation and commercialization of products that have changed the way scientists and engineers solve problems, most recently using micro and nanofluidics.

He has held technical and senior management positions in startups to large public companies including Corning Medical, Waters, Millipore, PerSeptive Biosystems, Perkin Elmer, Applied Biosystems, and IDEX Health & Science.

He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Michael Kaiser

SVP Software Development

Michael Kaiser joined Nabsys in 2012 and is responsible for leading the company’s software and informatics development efforts. He is a strong technical leader with a proven track record of developing and applying the technologies critical for creating break-through products.

He has held technical and management positions in life science companies for 30 years. His hardware and software IP are key components in novel instrumentation developed by Affymetrix and Covaris. Mike is especially proud of his participation in developing the Affymetrix GCS-3000 microarray scanner, which democratized microarray use and enabled vastly higher information content per array. The GCS-3000 sits on display today at the MIT Museum and the Broad Institute.

Mike received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester. When he’s not enmeshed in mathematical modeling and simulation, you can find Mike sailing in the waters of the northeast.

John Thompson

Principal Application Scientist

John Thompson rejoined Nabsys in June 2023 as a principal applications scientist after having helped progress the technology while working there from 2011-2014 in a variety of R&D roles. In the intervening years, he developed a greater appreciation of the critical need for understanding structural variations while in senior research positions at other biotechs. He developed assays for diagnosing rare Mendelian diseases (Claritas), somatic variation in cancer (PGDx, now LabCorp), and AAV-based gene therapy for rare diseases (Homology Medicines).

Prior to these positions, he led molecular biology and pharmacogenomic teams at Pfizer and developed novel applications for single-molecule sequencing at Helicos, including directly sequencing a 700,000-year-old DNA from what passed as horses at the time. That work was recounted in *Nature* and is one of his >100 peer-reviewed publications. Prior to joining industry, he was a Research Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology at Brown University, researching lambda site-specific DNA recombination. This work followed his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and BS from Yale University, both in chemistry.

When not characterizing genomes or training others how to do so, John can often be found playing tennis, traveling to the far corners of the earth, or babysitting grandchildren. He has pretty much given up on the Red Sox.

Edd Lee

Global Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Edd is focused on bringing Nabsys’ OhmX platform to market and supporting advancements in structural variant analysis for genomics research. Earlier in his career, at Roche he was involved in the introduction of the first exome and panel enrichment products, contributing to important early steps in the field of genomics. Later, he joined PacBio as Director of Human Genomics Marketing, where he led global marketing efforts that broadened the adoption of PacBio’s sequencing solutions across research and clinical applications.

He also served as Director of Product Management, Clinical Genomics at Illumina, supporting product launches tailored to clinical needs, and held a leadership role in product marketing at Fabric Genomics, working to strengthen their presence in the clinical genomics market.

Edd holds a B.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, San Diego. Outside of work, he enjoys fishing and surfing at the beach with his family.

Bob Hertsenberg

Global Head of Instrument Sales

Bob is an experienced senior executive with over 15 years of leadership experience in the genetics/genomics, medical device and diagnostic testing industries. During that time Bob built and managed several highly successful teams, created sustainable revenue pipelines, expanded market share and enhanced brand visibility while also maximizing operating margins and net income. Most recently, Bob managed a team that achieved continued record quarter over quarter growth and has become adept at finding additional hidden opportunities to deliver significant ROI and drive revenue expansion. Prioritizing employee development and team building are fundamental pillars of Bob’s leadership style, always leading by example. Outside of the office, Bob enjoys sports with his two teenage children (Alex 16, Mia 14), working out and playing golf.

Jay Sage, PhD

Director of Assay Development

Jay Sage joined Nabsys in October of 2014 bringing with him a diverse background in cell and molecular biology as well as protein and nucleic acid biochemistry. Dr. Sage has served as a core member of the R&D team at Nabsys, leveraging his experiences to drive sample preparation and technology development for electronic genome mapping. He received his B.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Michigan State University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Jennifer Davis, PhD

Director of Technology Development

Jennifer joined Nabsys in 2013 and has played a pivotal role in advancing the platform’s technology from its initial stages through product development and to commercialization. Over the past 10 years, she has held various R&D roles at Nabsys and has been an effective cross-functional leader in the areas of assay development, detector development, and product development.

Jennifer holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology and Biotechnology from Brown University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Clark University. While at Brown, she was a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the Pharmacia Fellowship, which supported her research focused on the conversion of lignocellulose to high-value chemicals for bioenergy applications.

Jennifer was attracted to Nabsys because of the technology’s potential to push the boundaries of genomics and impact the diagnosis of rare diseases. Beyond her professional pursuits, she enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband and two daughters.

Tim Hutchins

Director of Instrument Development

Tim joined Nabsys in 2015, bringing over 20 years of experience developing instrumentation for the life science industry. Tim is passionate about building successful engineering teams and developing direct reports and has deep experience in all phases of development, from feasibility to product launch.

He is the named inventor on nine US patents and has successfully developed and launched multiple products at both Hologic (formerly Cytyc) and Applied Biosystems.

Ned Jastromb

Director of Product Management

Ned joined Nabsys as Director of Product Management in March of 2023. Ned’s experience bringing innovative life science solutions to market spans a variety of OMICS and cell therapy-related technologies with key areas of responsibility including strategic marketing, business planning, product development, commercialization, advanced technology collaborations, and product management.

Prior to Nabsys, he worked at Agilent Technologies where he led a co-marketing arrangement with Biotek Instruments, eventually leading to their acquisition, and also launched the Seahorse XF Pro analyzer, winner of the 2023 Select Science drug discovery product of the year. Earlier in his career, Ned launched a new Cell Analysis business division at Nikon Instruments, capitalizing on his academic training in tissue and stem cell engineering at Harvard/MGH/Tissue Engineering, UCSD/Bioengineering, and Johns Hopkins/Cell Engineering.

He lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts and is still active and involved with his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, and the Boston affinity chapter of the Hopkins Biotech Network where he serves to mentor Hopkins students.

Elise Benson

Director of Marketing

Elise joined the team in August 2023 and manages all corporate and product marketing responsibilities for Nabsys. Elise began her career in agency client management and has held several key marketing and product management roles at Illumina and Labcorp, including launching Illumina’s tier 1 products globally and managing a prenatal genetics portfolio for Labcorp Women’s Health and Genetics.

She also helped scale a successful AI breast cancer detection start-up, CureMetrix, through the launch of cancerDx products. Elise is passionate about advancing precision medicine and making it widely accessible to all.

Outside of her professional endeavors, she loves enjoying time outdoors with her family and friends. You can find her surfing, doing beachfront yoga, and playing beach volleyball, among other activities.

Salvatore Mazza

Director of Sales

Sal joined Nabsys in October 2023 as the Director of North American Sales. He comes to Nabsys with over 12 years of high-performing industry experience in Territory and Strategic Account Management roles with leading companies in the genomics field, including Beckman Coulter, Life Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and PacBio.

Prior to this, he worked for several years in the Respiratory Genetics division of the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital after earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular Genetics from the University of Rochester.

A native of Maine, currently living in Massachusetts, he enjoys numerous outdoor activities as well as coaching youth soccer.