Samuel Lynch, DMD, DMSc
Throughout his career, Dr. Lynch has provided leadership to many local, state, national and international organizations. He has two doctorates, including one from Harvard Medical School, extensive achievements in healthcare, and is a successful entrepreneur and businessman. After ten years of training, teaching, patient care and clinical and scientific research at Harvard, he joined Sankyo (now Daiichi Sankyo) where he turned around a struggling wholly owned subsidiary over his five year tenure. He then started BioMimetic Therapeutics, Inc. leading it from inception to multiple financings to IPO to a trade sale valued at $400 million. Dr. Lynch has over 200 patents and publications, numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and numerous other awards and honors. He has led the development of multiple biotechnology products and medical devices through the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) review and approval process. With years of experience in dealing with the FDA and NIH, he is considered a leading expert in building biomedical companies, managing complex drug-device product development programs, extracting value for investors and partners, and most importantly creating medical products that improve the lives of millions of patients. According to one Harvard publication, he is one of only a few scientists or clinicians internationally who have made a medical discovery and successfully led its development through the entire process from “benchtop to bedside” while serving as CEO through a company’s entire life cycle from inception to acquisition. Dr. Lynch currently devotes his time to Lynch Biologics, LLC a new company he started in 2015 to develop and commercialize products to improve patients’ lives suffering from poorly healing wounds. He also serves as one of only four independent members on the Board of Directors of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), a top-ranked medical center employing 20,000 people with annual revenues of approximately $3.5 billion per year and providing health care to millions of patients. On the VUMC board he has chaired the Audit and Compliance as well as Compensation committees. His philanthropic activities include Founder and Chairman of the BioTN Foundation, a 501c3 organization whose mission is to promote STEM education and jobs. Further to his commitment to improving K-12 education he is a community leader in STEM, including a founding supporter of STEM Preparatory Academy, one of the most successful and racially diverse STEM schools the United States. He also has served as the head of operations for his 4,000-member church during which he helped to lead the fundraising for, and construction of, a new $24 million, 85,000 sf facility located on 110 acres. He has been a leader of medical missions to Guatemala and is past Chairman of Life Science Tennessee, a statewide advocacy organization composed of companies, universities, research institutions and government labs (e.g. Oak Ridge National Laboratory) involved in discovery and application of life sciences products and services that improve the health and well-being of people throughout the world.
Glenn Perdue, MBA
Glenn is the managing member of Kraft Analytics, LLC, an affiliate of KraftCPAs in Nashville, Tennessee. He is an expert in the areas of finance, valuation, economic damages, business transactions and forensic accounting through work on hundreds of projects in these areas. Glenn has particular depth in the economics of technology and intellectual property. He has testified over 50 times as an expert witness before judges, juries and others within these areas of expertise. Glenn began his professional career as an associate with a venture capital firm. He went on to form a software development and systems integration company, where he served as President, which grew to become one of the largest in the state. After six years, he sold his interest in this business to attend graduate school. Glenn has an undergraduate degree in business (BBA) with a concentration in Finance from Middle Tennessee State University and an MBA from the Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University. He also holds professional certifications as a Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA), Master Analyst in Financial Forensics (MAFF) and a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP). He also serves on the board of directors for the Nashville Technology Council and Life Science Tennessee.
Lawrence J. Marnett, PhD
Lawrence J. Marnett, Ph.D., is Dean of Basic Sciences of the School of Medicine of Vanderbilt University. He is also University Professor, Director of the A.B. Hancock Jr. Memorial Laboratory for Cancer Research, Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research, and Professor of Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Pharmacology. Marnett received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Duke University and did postdoctoral work at the Karolinska Institute and Wayne State University. He began his academic career at Wayne State University where he rose through the ranks to Professor of Chemistry. In 1989, he moved to Vanderbilt. Marnett’s research program focuses on the role of the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2 in cancer and inflammation as well as on the role of lipid oxidation products in DNA damage and mutation. His group has used structure-based based approaches in conjunction with medicinal chemistry to design selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors as potential anti-inflammatory, cancer preventive, and imaging agents. He is the author of over 500 research publications and 14 patents. Included in the awards Marnett has received are an American Cancer Society Faculty Research Award, the Sigma Xi Research Award, an Outstanding Investigator Award and a MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute, the Founders Award from the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Toxicology, and the George and Christine Sosnovsky Award for Cancer Research from the American Chemical Society. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of the American Chemical Society. Marnett was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the American Chemical Society journal, Chemical Research in Toxicology, a position that he held for 25 years. He has served on numerous editorial advisory boards, grant review committees and service committees of scientific societies. Marnett served as Associate Director of Basic Research of the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center from 1993-2002, Director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology from 2002-2016 and Associate Vice-Chancellor for Research of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine from 2014-2016.
Shawn H. Glinter, MBA
For over 15 years successful serial entrepreneur Shawn Glinter has been in love with helping students, faculty & entrepreneurs with their startups and early stage companies. His background reveals a vast experience and explains the passion he’s shown as he has helped, advised, and worked with over seven dozen first time founders of startups and mentored over 1000’s of companies. Shawn’s strengths are as a startup operator, building companies, and understanding the challenges faced while executing the proof of concept validation, acquiring customers, raising capital, and designing strategy. Shawn provides mentorship, counsel, and strategic advise to entrepreneurs. Shawn’s career began in emergency medicine and hospital administration (George Washington University Health System and MedStar Health in Washington, DC, and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN). He then launched a SAAS startup focused around the utilization of AED’s and the implementation ofPublic Access Defibrillation Programs. Not long after that, he started a technology company, which sold to a firm in Silicon Valley. After a couple of false starts and several successful startups, Shawn became a founding partner in a medical reimbursement company that ran out of gas… Through that experience, Shawn learned a lot about himself and entrepreneurship as well. Most recently, Shawn was a co-founder & CEO of a life sciences (water technology) company for an entity located in the USA, Canada, and Europe. In just over 3.5 years he successfully grew that company from $600K to 11M (which eventually sold). Shawn is currently the Founder & CEO of the biotechnology startup Pendant Biosciences (formerly Nanoferix) an advanced materials company developing innovative surface coating and drug delivery technologies using a unique, polymer-based platform. The company is initially focused on applications within the orthopedic market, and its lead product candidate is a surface modification intended to reduce the risk of infection associated with certain orthopedic implants. Shawn is currently the Entrepreneur in Residence at Belmont University and a Mentor in Residence at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. Shawn has spent the last seven years as one of the Master Mentors at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. He also a mentors for the Life Science Tennessee Mentor Program, the JumpStart Foundry, the Co.Lab accelerator program in Chattanooga, and is a Master Mentor for Launch TN (a state wide accelerator program). Shawn is married to his wife Nicole and they have a 9-year-old boy, Jordan. “I love being a Dad, Husband, and Entrepreneur every day of my life.”
Randy Bury, MBA
Randy Bury recently retired after a distinguished career with Johnson & Johnson. He started in manufacturing operations and progressed through roles with increased responsibility in planning, distribution and logistics. He later moved into a field-based role responsible for managing Johnson & Johnson’s corporate relationship with key hospital Integrated Delivery Networks(IDNs), Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) and hospital companies. Randy was responsible for developing and implementing J&J’s strategy for self- distribution customers who wanted to eliminate their distributor partner from their supply chain model. He most recently served as Director, Customer Logistics Strategy, responsible for managing channel strategies with IDNs, distributors and J&J’s animal health business. In this role, he was responsible for developing new strategies to leverage distributor capabilities and improve efficiency across the health care industry. During his thirty-eight year career, Randy was respected as an innovative leader and mentor with strong strategic insights. He has extensive experience with introducing new products, programs and procedures to his health care customers. His unique background allowed him to translate customer needs into solutions for his customers and J&J. Randy has remained active in the healthcare community by mentoring at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, JumpStart Foundry and volunteering with the American Heart Association and JDRF. He is also involved as a board member for several other non-profits and leads the local J&J community network volunteer committee. Randy earned a BA in Political Science in 1978 from Kean University and his MBA in 1984 from Fairleigh Dickson University.
Bruce Doeg
Mr. Doeg concentrates his practice in the area of business law with an emphasis on technology and life sciences. He previously served as the Nashville office managing shareholder and chaired both the Mergers & Acquisitions Group and the Business Technology Group for the Firm. Mr. Doeg serves as outside corporate and board counsel for companies across numerous industries, including technology, life sciences, manufacturing and journalism. His experience includes public and private capital formation, mergers and acquisitions, technology agreements, strategic alliances, corporate and commercial agreements, health care information technology, executive and employee compensation issues, corporate governance and business law advice. Mr. Doeg also has formed and represented venture and seed capital funds. Mr. Doeg started his legal career as a corporate litigator in Wilmington, Delaware. He has authored numerous articles and is a frequent speaker on business and technology law topics.
Eric Elmquist, PhD
As the BioTN Foundation’s Executive Director, Dr. Elmquist brings to bear his unique range of expertise, which spans science, business and startup culture, and science-based real estate. He’s a connector, building networks between people, and consistently bridging the gap between science and the lives it can change. Elmquist was educated at some of the premier universities in the nation, including Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. That’s where he received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Vanderbilt University, which included research focusing on the synthesis and structural analysis of oligonucleotides containing site-specific covalently bound food mutagens. He also spent two years in a post-doctoral fellowship in biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For the last decade, Elmquist has been contributing to the efforts to build Nashville into one of the country’s most exciting science scenes, starting as a scientist in a biotech startup, then as the Business Development Director one of the area’s most important life science enablers. Most recently he was a co-founder and Vice President of Research and Development at Pendant Biosciences, Inc., which recently became Tennessee’s first entry into the Johnson & Johnson incubator known as JLABS. Today, Elmquist uses his considerable influence in Nashville’s science and biotech industry to advocate for business-friendly legislation, recruit and retain new businesses to provide opportunities for the area’s most exciting researchers and product developers, and to build connections between the people who are exploring the most exciting areas of science. And, occasionally, you’ll still find him hovering intently over a microscope.
Kristin McGraner, Ed.D.
Kristin McGraner serves as the Founder and Executive Director of Nashville charter school STEM Preparatory Academy, which serves a unique and highly diverse population of students achieving among the greatest academic results in the nation through use of a novel academic model. Under Kristin’s leadership, STEM Preparatory Academy is dedicated to delivering a rigorous, inquiry-based education with a strategic focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. By cultivating a community of learning and academic excellence, STEM Prep bolsters the number of underrepresented students who graduate from the most competitive postsecondary programs and universities in the country and lead the discoveries and innovations of the future. Kristin is instrumental in guiding BioTN’s efforts to foster youth interest in the STEM disciplines, while relaying the major needs and challenges facing students and educators today.
Abby Trotter
As the Executive Director of BioTN, Abby Trotter oversees the organization’s administration, fundraising, and financial practices. Under her direction, Trotter ensures that BioTN’s programs are aligned with the organization’s long-term goal to drive investment in STEM education, workforce development and entrepreneurship in Tennessee.
Trotter also serves as a Partner at Hall Strategies, a Nashville-based independent public and government relations firm designed to help organizations succeed through telling their stories. Throughout her career, Trotter has been active in education policy and supporting neighborhood schools.
Kearstin Patterson
Kearstin Patterson is vice president of creative services for HCA Healthcare, a leading provider of healthcare services with nearly 2,000 sites of care across the United States and the UK.
With HCA Healthcare since 2013, Patterson leads a team of award-winning creative professionals responsible for the strategic direction and delivery of creative solutions across internal and external platforms.
She has served on the boards of many nonprofit and industry organizations, including Leadership Healthcare, Safe Haven Family Shelter the Arts and Business Council, and Iroquois Steeplechase, and has volunteered for numerous non-profit fundraising events and projects.