Team Member Category: Leadership Team

Director and representative of Launchpad Ventures.

Dr. Kamel is the Vice Chair for Research and Chief of Neurocritical Care in the Department of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine. He is also the Director of the Clinical and Translational Neuroscience Unit in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute and the Department of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine. His research focuses on the relationship between cardiac disease and stroke. He was a principal investigator and protocol lead for the NIH-funded ARCADIA trial, which tested antithrombotic strategies in patients with stroke and atrial cardiopathy. He is a principal investigator of the NIH-funded ASPIRE trial, which is testing antithrombotic strategies in patients with atrial fibrillation and intracerebral hemorrhage. He co-directs the Weill Cornell Laboratory for Understanding Cerebral Injury via Imaging and Data Science (LUCID), which is conducting several NIH-funded studies to develop cutting-edge imaging techniques for neurological disorders. He has published over 350 scientific publications, including in leading journals such as NEJM and JAMA.

Dr. Kamel attended college at Harvard and medical school at Columbia, then trained as a neurology resident and neurocritical care fellow at the University of California, San Francisco before joining Weill Cornell Medicine in 2011. He has a master’s degree from the Columbia University Data Science Institute and has led multiple studies involving novel uses of large-scale administrative healthcare data to better understand a variety of topics including cardiovascular complications of pregnancy, liver disease, and sepsis.

Dr. Kamel is co-chair of the NIH StrokeNet Prevention Working Group, co-chair of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis Brain Working Group, and a steering committee member of the international AF-SCREEN collaboration. He served on the writing committee for the American Heart Association’s most recent Secondary Stroke Prevention Guidelines. He serves on the leadership committees of several multicenter randomized trials, including STROKE-AF, Librexia AF, REACT-AF, and LAAOS-4. He is the Deputy Editor of JAMA Neurology and an editorial board member of Stroke. His academic contributions have been recognized by the Michael S. Pessin Stroke Leadership Prize from the American Academy of Neurology and the Robert G. Siekert New Investigator Award in Stroke and the Joseph A. Vita Award from the American Heart Association.

Christine is a serial entrepreneur, investor, founder and executive of several life sciences companies. She is a member of Launchpad Venture Group and a Founder of BuntAssociates LLC. BuntAssociates provides capital & executive staffing for start up companies in biotechnology and health care IT. Most recently, Christine has served as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board at Verseau Therapeutics. Prior to starting Verseau Therapeutics with Prof. Bob Langer and Prof. Dan Andersen from MIT, she was CEO and Founder of INTICA Biomedical (Personalized Medicine/Cancer) and TARIS Biomedical. TARIS Biomedical was cofounded with Prof. Michael Cima and Prof. Robert Langer from MIT (acquired by Allergan in 2014 for $588 million and by J&J in 2019 for an undisclosed amount). Previously, Christine was a Venture Partner with 2020HCP, a private investor group (exits: SQZ IPO, NYSE). Christine was an executive at Merck & Co, where she assumed various leadership positions, including worldwide commercialization for inflammation, neuroscience, and cardiovascular therapeutic products. Christine started her industry venture at Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland. She lead various R&D, business management, and commercialization functions for Roche Diagnostics. Christine holds degrees in Medical Technology and Immunochemistry (Biochemistry) from the Institute for Hygiene and Infectious Diseases/Medical School of the University of Saarbrücken, Germany. She mentors entrepreneurs and new technology startups at the MIT Deshpande Center. She continues to serve on various boards, including the BIDMC (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) Board of Overseers and the HMS (Harvard Medical School) Institute for RNA Medicine.

Roy Cohen received his Ph.D. Summa Cum Laude in biochemistry from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Israel), where he applied cutting-edge biophysical methods to study how ion channels regulate neurotransmitter release, a process that allows neurons in the brain to communicate with each other.

Following the completion of his Ph.D., Dr. Cohen joined Cornell’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department for post-doctoral training, where he developed innovative techniques to study immune cell function, while gaining experience in translational research and nanotechnology.

Dr. Cohen has been leading the conception, invention and proliferation of TET into a platform technology that now enables rapid detection of multiple different classes of target analytes including enzymes, proteins, metabolites, and small molecules. Dr. Cohen also lead the invention and development of TETmedical’s innovative nucleic acid biosensors, creating a pioneering technology for rapid molecular detection of targets such as RNA and DNA signatures of pathogens and infectious disease, and micro-RNA biomarkers for various diseases.

With close to 30 years of biochemistry and biophysics experience, Dr. Cohen is now leading the R&D and clinical studies of multiple TET technologies with both human and veterinarian applications.

Dr. Cohen is an Assistant Research Professor at the Baker Institute (Baker Institute, Cornell), and in the Public and Environmental Health Department in Cornell university.

Alex Travis is a veterinarian and research scientist, who has invented multiple new medical diagnostics. He received his A.B. magna cum laude from Princeton University, and his V.M.D. summa cum laude and Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. In his laboratory at Cornell University, Dr. Travis performs NIH-funded research in reproduction. He invented a diagnostic assay for male fertility that has been licensed by Androvia LifeSciences LLC. Known as the “Cap-Score,” this assay is the only commercial diagnostic that has prospectively been shown to predict the probability of a man’s fertility, and which received a first-in-class PLA code from the American Medical Association. The Cap-Score has already been used clinically to help over 6500 men who are struggling with fertility.

Dr. Travis also invented a novel approach to add function to nanoparticles with tethered enzymes, for which he received a prestigious Pioneer Award from the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Together with Dr. Roy Cohen, he is developing this technology into a platform for point-of-care diagnostic assays for conditions such as stroke and concussion, as well as diagnosis of specific pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza virus, etc. This platform technology has been licensed by TETmedical, Inc.

In addition to his entrepreneurship, Dr. Travis founded and directs Cornell’s Master of Public Health Program; he is founding Chair of the Department of Public & Ecosystem Health, and Director of Cornell’s Center for Pandemic Prevention & Response. He has received multiple awards including a Rotary Graduate Fellowship, the Pfizer Animal Health Award for Research Excellence, and a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.

Dr. David Fischell is an inventor and serial entrepreneur who has co-founded 14 medical technology companies with 15 FDA approved products over the last 35 years, including 5 active companies: TETmedical (Executive Chairman), Angel Medical Systems (Director), NeuroPace, Inc., Svelte Medical Systems and Ablative Solutions (Director). After earning his Cornell Ph.D. in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, David joined Bell Laboratories in 1979 where, for 11 years, he performed and directed a wide range of research and development projects including leading an internal venture and the design and development of an integrated platform in the AT&T network for AT&T’s first ever enhanced voice service, InfoworxTM. He left Bell Labs in 1991 to work full time on medical devices. He currently has 195 issued U.S. and has published numerous papers in the fields of telecommunications, cardiology and radiation dosimetry.

He was the primary designer of the BX Velocity™ and Cypher™ Stents for Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson Company that were implanted in more than 7 million patients. Cypher was the world’s first drug eluting stent. David’s patents have had significant impact in the commercialization of medical devices for the treatments of cardiovascular disease, epilepsy, diabetes, and migraine headaches.

Dr. Fischell has received numerous awards and recognitions including his 1990 award for his design of the architecture of the AT&T network platform for enhanced voice services. He served on the Cornell University Board of Trustees from 2008-2016 and the Weill Cornell Medicine Board of Fellows from 2016-2022. He is now Cornell Trustee Emeritus and a Presidential Counselor. He holds an appointment as adjunct professor, serves as chairman emeritus of the Advisory Council and was instrumental in the founding in 2004 of Cornell’s Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering. He was selected as Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry Magazine’s 100 Notable People June 2008. He is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) ,was a regional winner of the Earnst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2013 and elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2016.