Keynote Speaker: Lisa Rich-Milan, CEO, Maridose LLC

Lisa Rich-Milan has over 30 years of experience in healthcare, with 10 years in CEO/GM/VP roles in pharmaceuticals, biotech, diagnostics, and generics/biosimilars industries. Lisa joined Maridose LLC as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and voting Board member in December 2022. Maridose is 1 of 7 DEA approved biopharmaceutical research and product development companies for prescription and non-prescription drugs utilizing cannabis.

She moved from OraSure Technologies as GM/VP of Diversigen leading approximately 100 employees in the innovative area of Molecular Solutions for clinical and drug research focused on Microbiomes and Multiomics. Lisa has also previously held CEO positions at Caligor Coghlan Pharma Services and CompuNet Clinical Laboratories and other leadership roles in sales and marketing, operations, commercial teams, and payer teams at Quest Diagnostics Clinical Informatics, Bristol-Myers Squibb, UCB, Synthon Pharmaceuticals, and Roche Diagnostics.

Her community based Board roles and Committee Chairs included organizations such as the University of Dayton Business Advisory Board, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, WOCIP, Dayton Chamber of Commerce, Clothes That Work, GDAHA, Peachtree Rose Club, Leadership Dayton, and a current member of the graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She graduated from the University of Dayton with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting/Finance in 1985.

Adriana Rosato, PhD, Director, Center for Molecular Medicine and Faculty Scientist III, MaineHealth Institute for Research

Dr Adriana Rosato is the Director of the Center for Molecular Medicine at Maine Health Institute for Research. She is a visiting Professor of Medicine at Tufts University, and ad-joint Professor of Pathology at the University of California, Riverside, CA. She is member of the Gulf Coast Consortia (GCC) Cluster for Antimicrobial Resistance (GCC AMR), member of American Society of Microbiology (ASM), and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. She has received multiple awards, including Faculty Award and Outstanding service as mentor of minorities. Dr Rosato earned his MSc, and Ph.D at the University Paris XI, Pasteur Institute, Paris, France. She is an internationally recognized expert on molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance with emphasis in multi-drug resistant pathogens (MDR), clinical impact of resistance, and the molecular epidemiology and evolution of MDR, the host human response during MDR infections and in the effects of antimicrobials and immunotherapies (e.g. cancer) on the microbiome. Her works have been published extensively (> 60) . She is Editor in numerous journals of the ASM, former standing reviewer, ad-hoc of NIH and European Agencies in where her input has contributed to important funding decisions.

Amanda Howland, CCO & Cofounder, ElleVet Sciences

Amanda Howland is ElleVet’s co-founder. Amanda was instrumental in development of ElleVet’s proprietary product line. She has over 20 years experience in public health research and marketing, and has a BA from Colby College and an MPH from UNE.

Melissa Maginnis, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology, University of Maine

Dr. Melissa Maginnis is an Associate Professor of Microbiology in the Department of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences at The University of Maine. She was born and raised in Pennsylvania and earned her B.S. in Biological Sciences from Neumann College. Dr. Maginnis earned her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Vanderbilt University in Dr. Terry Dermody’s laboratory and performed postdoctoral training at Brown University in Dr. Walter Atwood’s laboratory. Dr. Maginnis joined the UMaine faculty in 2014, and her laboratory at UMaine is focused on defining how the human JC polyomavirus recognizes and invades host cells; this work can ultimately elucidate targets for novel antiviral therapies to prevent or treat viral illnesses.

Moderator: Marsha Rolle, PhD, Visiting Professor of Chemical Engineering, Roux Institute at Northeastern University

Marsha Rolle, Ph.D. is a visiting professor of chemical engineering at the Roux Institute at Northeastern University in Portland, ME. A native New Englander, she grew up in Freeport, ME and earned her B.S. degree in Biochemistry from Brown University in Providence, RI. After graduation, she joined Sulzer Innotec (then part of SulzerMedica, Austin, TX) to develop drug delivery technologies for medical devices. She earned a PhD in Bioengineering at the University of Washington and postdoctoral training at the Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle.

Since 2007, Dr. Rolle has been a member of the biomedical engineering faculty at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, MA. She is passionate about commercial translation of biomedical technologies and cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset in her students. She published over 40 peer-reviewed articles with students and international collaborators in the fields of tissue engineering and biomaterials and holds 10 issued U.S. patents. In 2020, she co-founded the Cell Engineering Research Equipment Suite (CERES@WPI) in collaboration with the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI) biotech incubator; funded by the Massachusetts Life Science Center. Her work has been funded by DAAD (faculty fellowship to Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany), National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Manufacturing USA Institutes.

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