Genomics Collaborative Announces the Appointment of New Senior Management.

Business Editors and Medical/Health Writers

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BW HealthWire)--Sept. 14, 2000

Genomics Collaborative, Inc. (GCI) announced today the appointment of Art Williams, Ph.D. to the position of Chief Information Officer and Kristin Ardlie, Ph.D. as GCI's Vice President of Genetics.

"Art and Kristin each have impressive track records in the genomics industry," said Michael J. Pellini, M.D., President and CEO of Genomics Collaborative. "Art's leadership in technology and Kristin's expertise in population genetics will be major assets to GCI. We are excited to have these two individuals joining GCI at a time when the company is focusing on the importance of developing collaborations in an effort to speed the drug discovery process."

Dr. Williams most recently established and headed the Pharmaceutical Development Informatics group at Bristol-Myers Squibb's Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Previously, he held senior positions in information technology at SmithKline Beecham. During his tenure, Dr. Williams founded and ran SmithKline Beecham's Bioinformatics group, with overall responsibility for the management of genomic and biological sequence data, bioinformatics systems development, and bioinformatics support and training for the company and its partners. Prior to this, he led the Computer-Assisted Molecular Analysis group at ImClone Systems. Dr. Williams pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley, received his Ph.D. from Temple University and his B.S. from Moravian College.

Before joining GCI, Dr. Ardlie served as a Research Scientist at Whitehead Institute's Center for Genome Research with the Common Variants group. At Whitehead, Dr. Ardlie was engaged in population genetic studies focused on linkage disequilibrium, human demographic history, and the influence of selection on disease mutations. Prior, she was a Junior Fellow of Harvard University's Society of Fellows. During her tenure at Harvard, Dr. Ardlie worked in the laboratories of Dr's Richard Lewontin and Walter Gilbert. She earned her Ph.D. at Princeton University and her B.Sc from the Australian National University, where she was awarded the University Medal.

Genomics Collaborative is focused on identifying and understanding the role of genes in prevalent diseases by building disease-specific discovery modules to facilitate the identification of gene targets for use in pharmaceutical discovery. GCI's broad-based discovery platform, including Global Repository(TM), GCI Discovery(TM), scientific technology collaborations, and proprietary software, is specifically geared towards the industry's transition towards large-scale association studies and will lead to expediting drug discovery and improvements in diagnosis, prediction, prevention, and treatment of disease. GCI has developed a worldwide network of investigators and proprietary information technology for resourcing and analyzing genotypic, expression, and proteomic data generated from the analysis of hundreds of thousands of DNA and tissue samples. These samples are accessed via collaborative studies and maintained using state-of-the-art patient informed consent, confidentiality, and quality control procedures. Developed from a network of over 250 investigator sites, Global Repository(TM) is longitudinally linked to both detailed medical and demographic data from selected worldwide geographies. From more information, please visit www.getDNA.com.