The People Behind
DNA DTC

Dr. Behar received his degrees from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. As an MD he has dual specialization in Internal Medicine and Critical Care Medicine in Rambam Medical Center, Haifa Israel. His PhD thesis was in the field of Population Genetics. Dr. Behar's research areas of interest are across the broad range of evolutionary genomics, ancestry, phylogenetics and translational genomics -- having been the leading author and co-author of numerous research papers in these areas. His current primary interest is developing robust, low-priced genetic testing for the general public that will allow responsible personalized genetic medicine to any individual worldwide.

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Dr. Shohat is a world renowned expert in medical genetics with 248 original research articles to his credit. He has co-authored and edited two books, and received numerous personal awards for his achievements in genetics research. For several decades he has served as professor of pediatrics and medical genetics at Tel Aviv University and Director of the Rafael Recanathi institute for Medical Genetics. Dr. Shohat is a member of the Israeli, American and European Societies of Medical Genetics, as well as of the National Counseling Committee of the Ministry of Health for OB/GYN and Genetics.

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Dr. Bormans received her Ph.D. in genetics from Texas A&M University where she developed new STR marker panels for use in plant breeding. As a Research Fellow at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, she managed three large scale projects to identify genes related to cardiovascular disease.

She is currently focused on developing efficient methods for large scale genotyping projects using both direct sequencing and STR analysis.

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Dr. Bauer began work in Clinical Pathology at Loma Linda University Medical Center and went on to complete a fellowship in Transfusion Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During this training, he gained valuable experience in clinical laboratory testing and laboratory administration. Dr. Bauer has been a consulting physician since 1994 and is certified in Clinical Pathology, Blood Banking and Transfusion Medicine, as well as being a Tissue Banking specialist. Dr. Bauer currently acts as CLIA Lab Director for Gene by Gene.

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Dr. Katz is a board certified Anatomic Pathologist and Cytopathologist who is currently Professor of Pathology, Chief Research Cytopathology, and Director, Image Cytometry Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas.

Dr. Katz received her medical degree from the University of Witwatersrand Medical School in Johannesburg, South Africa. She completed a residency in anatomic pathology and hematopathology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, along with a residency in anatomic pathology at New England Medical Center Tufts Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. She served fellowships in Laboratory Medicine and Cytopathology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston,Texas. Dr. Katz was Chief of Cytopathology at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center from 1984 until 1998. During that time she was instrumental in setting up the Quality Assurance and Quality Control Program for Cytopathology, including gynecological cytopathology. She also instituted the regulations as required by the CLIA Act of 1988, and has been actively involved in cervical cytology quality assurance for over 20 years.

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Spencer Wells is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Professor at Cornell University. He leads The Genographic Project, which is collecting and analyzing hundreds of thousands of DNA samples from people around the world in order to decipher how our ancestors populated the planet.

Wells received his Ph.D. in population genetics from Harvard University and conducted postdoctoral work at Stanford and Oxford. He has appeared in numerous documentary films and is the author of three books, The Journey of Man, Deep Ancestry and Pandora's Seed.

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Eran Halpern is a senior research scientist in the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) in Berkeley, California and an associate professor in Tel-Aviv University in the School of Computer Science and in the Department of Microbiology. His research group works on computational methods for the analysis of population genetics data. His group has developed methods that have been used by thousands of researchers worldwide in order to understand the genetic causes of diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
Professor Halpern has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles across different disciplines including human and population genetics, computational biology, algorithms, and operations research. He received various honors for academic achievements, including the Rothschild Fellowship, the Intel, and the Krill prizes. Professor Halpern received his Ph.D. in computer science from Tel-Aviv University.

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With an academic background spanning from Aeronautical Engineering to Political Sciences, Max Blankfeld found his true vocation after graduating summa cum laude with a BBA from Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil. After moving to Houston, Texas in 1991, he completed his MBA at Rice University, majoring in Finance, Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

Before coming to the United States, Blankfeld held top management positions at publicly traded companies, where he was responsible for operations and growth strategies. During his years in the US, he started and managed a company in the area of consumer products, until he sold it in 2001.

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An entrepreneur and life-long genealogy enthusiast, Mr. Greenspan founded Family Tree DNA in 2000, the original unit of what went to become Gene by Gene. Prior business and entrepreneur experience spans photo-imaging/industrial photography and commercial Real Estate. In a prior career Mr. Greenspan oversaw the conversion of a company sales force from analog to digital data capture..


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