bioAffinity Technologies Appoints New Science Team

SAN ANTONIO, April 04, 2016 -- bioAffinity Technologies, a privately held cancer diagnostics company, today announced that Vivienne Rebel, M.D., Ph.D., has joined the Company as Executive Vice President of Research and Development (R&D) and Chief Medical and Science Officer. 

Dr. Rebel’s team will also include David Elzi, Ph.D., as Director of Basic and Applied Research and Jamila R. Sanchez, Ph.D., as bioAffinity’s Senior Manager for Lung Diagnostics. 

“We have made significant progress on the science behind our CyPath® technology since we started our collaboration with Dr. Rebel,” said bioAffinity President and CEO Maria Zannes.  “Bringing Dr. Rebel and her team onboard will expand our R&D exponentially and expedite commercialization of our diagnostic for early-stage lung cancer.”

bioAffinity’s porphyrin-based CyPath® bio-label preferentially binds to cancer cells and labels them a brilliant crimson red that can be detected by a fluorescent imaging system. 

Dr. Rebel is a cancer (stem) cell biologist, with more than 20 years of experience in scientific research, focused on understanding the molecular events that lead to cancer development.  She received her M.D. and Ph.D. from the Free University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and post-doctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School.  From 2005 to 2016, she led her own research group at The University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center at San Antonio, where she first collaborated with bioAffinity.  Dr. Rebel received the 2012 Cancer Therapy and Research Center Discovery of the Year Award.  She is the (co)author of more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Elzi brings 20 years of research experience to bioAffinity where he will continue to work on the mechanism of porphyrin uptake in cancer cells and expand CyPath®’s use with other cancers. Dr. Elzi earned his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Washington, in conjunction with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.  He subsequently performed post-doctoral research at the Bonfils Blood Center and University of Colorado Department of Surgery, where he studied the molecular mechanisms of transfusion-related lung injury.  Dr. Elzi comes to bioAffinity from The UT Health Science Center where his research included applying proteomic techniques to study cellular senescence in primary and cancer cells.  He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed articles.

Dr. Sanchez brings 15 years of research experience to her work with bioAffinity on optimization and commercialization of CyPath® for early-stage lung cancer. She earned her Ph.D. in Cellular and Structural Biology at The UT Health Science Center where she gained extensive experience with fluorescence microscopy. Her earlier work with the Barshop Institute for Aging and Longevity Studies focused on associations between aging and cancer development.  Her emphasis on cancer research continued as a postdoctoral associate at The Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute under Dr. Rebel.  Dr. Sanchez has published five peer-reviewed papers with four additional manuscripts in preparation.

About bioAffinity Technologies

bioAffinity Technologies, Inc. (www.bioaffinitytech.com) is a privately held development-stage company advancing proprietary early‐stage diagnostic technology applicable to a broad range of cancers. The Company holds extensive U.S. and international patents that allow for global commercialization of its technology.

Contact:  Maria Zannes, 505.400.9747