LungLifeAI Logo

Leadership Team

Management Team

Paul Pagano, PhD

Chief Executive Officer

Paul Pagano is the CEO of the Company and has over 16 years of experience in the sciences covering chemistry, engineering, and cancer biology. He was trained at UCLA in translational lung cancer research and has multiple publications spanning early disease pathogenesis and resistance to targeted lung therapy.

Paul has spent the last five years at the Company leading research and development teams in developing clinical diagnostics for lung cancer using liquid biopsy. Paul has held positions at Cynvenio Biosystems Inc (formerly known as CytomX Therapeutics, Inc.) where he developed and patented a microfluidic platform for circulating tumor cell enrichment and analysis, and at Amgen Inc. in quality analytical laboratories. Prior to Amgen Inc., he worked in Human Resources at State Farm Insurance, one of the leading property and casualty insurance providers in the US, where he facilitated the California zone restructuring and consolidation efforts that resulted in significant operational cost savings.

Paul received a B.S. from UC Santa Barbara in microbiology and immunology, and earned a PhD in pharmacology from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

David Anderson

Chief Financial Officer

David is a chartered accountant and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales with over 25 years’ experience of senior finance roles. He qualified with Stoy Hayward (now BDO LLP) and from 1998 to 2009 was an audit partner in their London office before becoming an audit partner with Crowe Clark Whitehill (now Crowe UK LLP) from 2010 to 2012. Since then he has held senior finance roles with Strategic Minerals Plc, Hakkasan and C|T Group. He is currently also the CFO and non board member of Verici Dx Plc on a part time basis.

David received a BSc(Econ) from the London School of Economics.

Current Directors

Roy Davis

Non-Executive Chairman

Roy has extensive experience spanning medical devices, diagnostics, and the digital healthcare space. He is currently Chairman of Medica Group PLC, the UK’s leading teleradiology company, Foster & Freeman Limited, a leading forensic imaging manufacturer and RAIR Health Limited, an applied AI and health data company.

Prior to these roles, Roy served as the chief executive officer of Optos plc, a leading ophthalmology medical device business, from 2008 until June 2016 when he stepped down following the company’s acquisition by Nikon Corporation.

Before joining Optos, he served from 2007 as chief executive officer of Gyrus Group plc, a leading medical device company, prior to its acquisition by the Olympus Corporation of Japan in 2008, having previously served as COO of Gyrus from 2003 and a Non-Executive Director since its IPO in 1997.

Prior to this, Roy was the CEO of NTERA, a nanotechnology company, and before that spent almost ten years with Arthur D Little, the global management consulting company, where he was Vice President and Global Head of its operations management business.

Paul Pagano, PhD

Executive Director

Paul Pagano is the CEO of the Company and has over 15 years of experience in the sciences covering chemistry, engineering, and cancer biology. He was trained at UCLA in translational lung cancer research and has multiple publications spanning early disease pathogenesis and resistance to targeted lung therapy.

Paul has spent the last five years at the Company leading research and development teams in developing clinical diagnostics for lung cancer using liquid biopsy. Paul has held positions at Cynvenio Biosystems Inc (formerly known as CytomX Therapeutics, Inc.) where he developed and patented a microfluidic platform for circulating tumor cell enrichment and analysis, and at Amgen Inc. in quality analytical laboratories. Prior to Amgen Inc., he worked in Human Resources at State Farm Insurance, one of the leading property and casualty insurance providers in the US, where he facilitated the California zone restructuring and consolidation efforts that resulted in significant operational cost savings.

Paul received a B.S. from UC Santa Barbara in microbiology and immunology, and earned a PhD in pharmacology from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

David Anderson

Executive Director

David is a chartered accountant and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales with over 25 years’ experience of senior finance roles. He qualified with Stoy Hayward (now BDO LLP) and from 1998 to 2009 was an audit partner in their London office before becoming an audit partner with Crowe Clark Whitehill (now Crowe UK LLP) from 2010 to 2012. Since then he has held senior finance roles with Strategic Minerals Plc, Hakkasan and C|T Group. He is currently the CFO of Verici Dx Plc.

David received a BSc(Econ) from the London School of Economics.

Andrew Boteler

Non-Executive Director

Andrew is a UK qualified chartered accountant and currently Non-Executive Director of Octopus VCT plc. From 2017 to 2023 Andrew was CFO of Riverford Organic Farmers Limited.  From 2009 to 2019, Andrew was CFO of Gooch & Housego PLC and in addition, was responsible for legal, investor relations and IT. He has had over 25 years working in the manufacturing sector, spending 19 of those years with high technology manufacturing companies. Andrew is experienced in M&A and fund raising, including management buy-out, trade sales and bank funding.

James McCullough

Non-Executive Director

James McCullough is the CEO of Renalytix AI (AIM:RENX, NASDAQ:RNLX) and has experience building emerging technology companies in both the public and private sectors with specific expertise in the life-sciences industry.

Prior to his role at Renalytix AI, James served as CEO of Exosome Diagnostics, a venture capital backed personalized medicine company developing noninvasive liquid biopsy diagnostics in cancer, which was acquired by Bio-Techne in 2018. He also serves on the board of directors of Verici Dx Plc, Kantaro Biosciences and the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer. James has served as a board Director for LungLife AI since 2019.

Sara Barrington

Non-Executive Director

Sara is CEO of Verici Dx (AIM:VRCI) and CCO of Kantaro Biosciences, LLC. Sara  previously served as CEO of the Company from January 2019 to May 2020. She has held numerous senior roles including EVP of Business Operations with Bruin Biometrics, CFO of Exosome Diagnostics, and CFO at AusAm Biotechnologies. Prior to working in the US, she worked for British Telecom in London in business development and strategy.

Sara is qualified as a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. She has also qualified with Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Scientific Advisory Board

Steven Dubinett, MD

UCLA

Steven M. Dubinett is the Associate Vice Chancellor and Senior Associate Dean for Translational Research and directs the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He is Chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care Medicine and Clinical Immunology and Allergy at CTSI. Dr. Dubinett is jointly appointed as Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at CTSI. He has experience in translational investigation, academic administration, mentorship and peer review. Building on original discoveries relevant to immunity and inflammation in the pathogenesis of lung cancer, he has developed a translational research program, which now utilizes these laboratory-based discoveries in the translational research and clinical environment. As a member of NCI Translational Research Working Group, Dr. Dubinett participated in designing pathways to clinical goals. He previously chaired the FDA Cellular, Tissue & Gene Therapies Advisory Committee. He served on the NCI Thoracic Malignancy Steering Committee as a Translational Science Representative.

He serves on the Advisory Boards for the Colorado Lung Cancer Specialized Project of Research Excellence (“SPORE”), Texas Lung Cancer SPORE, Lung Cancer Research Foundation in the US, LUNGevity Foundation, the Lung Cancer Foundation of America and the Thoracic Oncology Programs at the Mayo Clinic and Mount Sinai. He has served on several National Institutes of Health study sections including, Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy and Tumor Microenvironment.

Dr. Dubinett has trained more than 45-graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty, nearly all of whom have continued in academic or industry research careers. His research related to immunity and inflammation in the pathogenesis of lung cancer and early detection is funded by Stand Up To Cancer, the NCI Moonshot Human Tumor Atlas Network, the NCI Early Detection Research Network, the NCI Molecular Characterization Laboratory Program, the Department of Veteran Affairs, the US Department of Defense and California Institute of Regenerative Medicine.

Dr. Dubinett received his MD from Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and has completed fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Claudia Henschke, PhD, MD

International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP)

A pioneer and leading expert in diagnostic radiology, Claudia Henschke has long believed that smokers and those exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke should be screened for early detection of lung cancer, when a tumor is still small enough to be cured. She has authored more than 500 scientific articles and chapters in statistics and medicine, authored three books and received 14 patents. She has mentored more than 80 medical students, fellows, and faculty, including for doctoral and master’s degrees. Her PhD thesis and statistical efforts included work on the use of neural networks and modeling of large national databases for large scale national programs.

In 1992, she started the first low-dose CT screening study in the world, the Early Lung Cancer Action Project (ELCAP), reported in the Lancet on July 9, 1999. Since then, she has led city, state, national, and international projects implementing lung screening, providing invaluable research in over 400 publications. Dr. Henschke has always been mindful of the unique needs of women and has shown that women are at greater risk of lung cancer than men.

Dr. Henschke developed and heads the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP), an international collaborative group of physicians and scientists who are experts on lung cancer-related issues. The I-ELCAP sites have screened over 85,000 people at 82 institutions in 10 countries around the world. This rich and internationally diverse collaboration has met two times per year since 1999 (41 conferences to date) for continued improvement of lung screening as well as the added benefits of early detection of cardiovascular, breast, and other diseases that can be identified in a single low-dose CT scan. I-ELCAP’s computer management system is currently being translated into an open-source system (VAPALS-ELCAP) to be implemented by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs for CT screening for lung cancer for veterans nationwide. The success of the I-ELCAP program has led to another multi-national study, The Initiative for Early Lung Cancer Research on Treatment (IELCART) which started in 2016. Its goal is to assess the efficacy of various early lung cancer treatments in the context of clinical care. Dr. Henschke strives to be a role model for women in the areas of medicine and research where women are significantly under represented.

Dr. Henschke joined the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2010 as a radiologist and Professor of Radiology. She received a BA and MS in mathematical statistics from Southern Methodist University, PhD in computer science and mathematical statistics from the University of Georgia, and MD from Howard University. She completed her residency and fellowship training at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where she then became a faculty member. Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Henschke was Professor of Radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

David F. Yankelevitz, MD

International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP)

David Yankelevitz is a world-recognized expert on Fine Needle Aspirations (FNAs) of lung nodules; and he has developed one of the largest FNA practices in the United States, performing over 10,000 FNA procedures, to date. 

He is the Co-Principal Investigator of the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) – a lung cancer screening study which, to date, has enrolled over 85,000 people around the world. He is also the Co-Principal Investigator of the Initiative for Early Lung Cancer Research on Treatment (IELCART) which started in 2016. 

As a researcher, Dr. Yankelevitz’s main clinical and academic interest is in the evaluation of treatments for early-diagnosed lung cancer, and he has numerous collaborations with thoracic surgeons, pulmonologists, pathologists and molecular biologists on related projects. He led the development of software for volumetric analysis of pulmonary nodules -- now a widely accepted tool supporting early diagnosis. In addition, he has been PI on three NCI grants related to this work and has performed the functions of a core lab for several clinical trials in early lung cancer, including development of protocols for saving small amounts of tissue from lung biopsies used for molecular testing, integrating tumor volume assessments, and correlating with molecular markers. Dr. Yankelevitz is working with the industry on assessing liquid biopsies to be integrated into diagnostic and treatment approaches. He is a member of the American College of Radiology Committee on screening recommendations (LungRADS).

In addition to his medical and research work, Dr. Yankelevitz has co-authored over 400 articles, abstracts and book chapters; and he has trained 80 research fellows in thoracic imaging. He has obtained 14 patents.

Dr. Yankelevitz joined the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2010 as a radiologist and Professor of Radiology.  Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Yankelevitz was Professor of Radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College. 

Max Rosen, MD

UMass Medical School and UMass Memorial Medical Center

Dr. Rosen is Professor and Chair of Radiology at UMass Medical School and UMass Memorial Medical Center, which is comprised of 70 clinical and 20 research faculty, and performs over 750,000 imaging studies per year. Prior to his appointment at UMass, he worked for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center  in Boston in Interventional Radiology and Abdominal Imaging sections. At BIDMC, Dr. Rosen developed and managed several outpatient radiology practice sites, including an innovative CT screening service which was one of the early providers of LDCT for lung cancer screening. Dr. Rosen is a fellow of the American College of Radiology, the Society of Interventional Radiology, and the American Heart Association. He served as president of the Massachusetts Radiological Society and the New England Roentgen Ray Society. His current research is focused on quality improvement in Radiology using eye-tracking technology and natural language processing.

Dr. Rosen received his undergraduate degree in Psychology, an MD from Tufts Medical School, and a Master in Public Health with a concentration in Clinical Effectiveness from Harvard School of Public Health. He completed fellowship in Vascular Radiology at Mass General.

Ruth Katz, MD

MD Anderson

Dr. Katz is a board certified Anatomic and Clinical Pathologist with specialist certification in Cytopathology. She was the former Chief of Research Cytopathology, Chief of Cytopathology and Director, Image Cytometry Diagnostic Laboratory at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. She retired from MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2018 after serving over 40 years on the faculty. She is an honorary professor of pathology at Sheba Medical Center at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel and was formerly a professor of pathology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

For the last 15 years, her major research interest was in looking at genetic susceptibility to develop lung cancer. She has developed a panel of novel molecular markers in sputum and a circulating tumour-cell test in blood using a four colour FISH test to predict the presence of malignancy within indeterminate lung nodules at high risk for developing lung cancer, which is the basis for the LungLB® technology. In 2015 she was cited by The Pathologist as one of the 100 most influential laboratory professionals in the world. To date she has 14,671 citations in peer reviewed journals.

She graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1969 with a MB. B. CH. She trained to be a pathologist at the University of Cape Town, Cape Town South Africa, New England Medical Center, Tufts University, Boston and at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. 

Michael Donovan, PhD, MD

Mount Sinai

Dr. Donovan is an adjunct Professor in the Department of Pathology at Mount Sinai and Vice Chair of Translational Research and Professor of Pathology at the University of Miami. Dr. Donovan currently serves as Chief Medical Officer of Renalytix AI and Verici Dx.

In addition to an academic career at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Donovan has over 20 years’ experience in the biotechnology industry, serving in various senior management roles at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Incyte Pharmaceuticals. He most recently served as Chief Clincal Officer of Vigilant Biosiences Inc., Chief Medical Officer of MetaStat Inc., and Chief Medical Officer of Exosome Diagnostics Inc. Dr. Donovan received a BS in Zoology, a MS in Endocrinology and a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from Rutgers University. He received his MD from the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey.

Joshua D Kuban, MD

University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Kuban is an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Kuban specialises in local regional cancer therapies, treating vascular complications of malignancy and percutaneous tissue biopsy. His current research is focused on percutaneous lung biopsy, CTCs and portal vein stenting. He serves as the Programme Director for the UT/MD Anderson Interventional Radiology IR Residency programmes.

Dr. Kuban received his degree in Biology from Boston College and Maters and M.D. from Boston University School of Medicine. He completed Radiology training at Baylor College of Medicine and Interventional Radiology fellowship at Brown University prior to joining the MD Anderson Faculty. 

Drew Moghanaki, MD, MPH

UCLA Health

Dr. Moghanaki is a Professor and Chief of Thoracic Oncology at the UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology. He holds a joint appointment at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center where he directs patient care and research for Veterans with lung cancer. He leads several national lung cancer initiatives in the VA including the VA Partnership to Increase Access to Lung Screening (VA-PALS) and the phase III VA Lung Cancer Surgery or Stereotactic Radiotherapy (VALOR) randomized clinical trial. He has been a member, advisor, and chair of multiple committees for national organizations and advocacy groups that includes the American Cancer Society, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society of Radiation Oncology, Radiosurgery Society, Veterans Health Administration, Lungevity Foundation, GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

Today, Dr. Moghanaki collaborates with and mentors clinicians across the country at multiple academic institutions and VA medical centers. He currently leads over $50 million in initiatives for lung cancer clinical implementation and research and is frequently invited to give lectures at scientific conferences around the world. He has published multiple textbook chapters, review articles, and scientific papers and is also a scientific grants reviewer for federal and non-profit research funding agencies. He is commonly interviewed by the press for news stories about lung cancer and is very engaged with the lung cancer advocacy community.

Dr. Moghanaki is a graduate of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and was a recipient of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship. He completed an internship in general surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, residency in radiation oncology at the University of Pennsylvania, and master’s degree in Epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health.

LungLifeAI Logo
LungLife AI licensure/accreditation information posted here.
© 2023 LungLIfe AI, Inc.
All rights reserved. LiquidBiopsy is a trademark of LungLife AI, Inc.
crosschevron-down