Addgene Appoints Joanna Brownstein and Kristin Darby to Its Board of Directors

March 06, 2013 -- Addgene, Inc. is pleased to announce the appointments of Joanna Brownstein MBA, MSW and Kristin Darby CPA, MBA to its Board of Directors. The addition of these two new directors add experienced expertise promoting Addgene’s mission to accelerate research and discovery by improving access to useful research materials and information.

Joanna Brownstein, MBA, MSW is the Principal of Brownstein Consulting specializing in operations and product management for companies in healthcare, technology, and education. She received her MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Previously she served as Director of Customer Operations and of Product Management at KYRUUS, a healthcare big data startup that helps organizations engage, manage, and optimize large networks of physicians. Ms. Brownstein served as Associate Director of the eagle-i consortium at the Harvard Medical School Center for Biomedical Informatics, a national network for biomedical researchers to catalog information about the resources in their labs. Ms. Brownstein brings extensive experience in customer engagement, materials sharing, software systems, strategic planning, and operations solutions.

Kristin Darby, CPA, MBA is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Vice President of Information Technology for the New England Region of Vanguard Health Systems. She received her MBA from Henley Business School in Oxfordshire, England and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner. Previous positions include CIO and Vice President of the Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions and Director of Information Technology at Fresenius Medical Care. Among many non-profit board leadership positions, Ms. Darby served as the president of the Downtown Boston Rotary Club and on the board of the Junior League. In 2010, she was recognized by the Boston Business Journal as one of its 40 under 40. Ms. Darby brings extensive experience in developing and implementing strategic initiatives, developing and deploying innovative technological solutions, and growing international organizations.

“Ms. Brownstein and Ms. Darby are exciting additions to Addgene’s Board of Directors,” said Dr. Joanne Kamens, Executive Director of Addgene. She added that, “They bring expertise that complements the strengths of our board and will enable us to reach our goals in 2013 including increased support for Addgene’s international community and expansion of a pilot program enabling distribution of materials to for-profit requestors. We are delighted to welcome them.”

About Addgene

Addgene is a 501(c)3 non-profit biorepository dedicated to facilitating scientific discoveries by operating a plasmid library for researchers. Plasmids are DNA-based research reagents commonly used in the life sciences. Scientists need to share these reagents to collaborate and build upon the work of their colleagues. Addgene has worked with over 1,300 laboratories to assemble its current collection of 22,000 plasmids, and continues to solicit new deposits. Plasmids have been distributed to over 60 different countries and over 5,000 plasmids are shipped each month. By authenticating, storing, archiving, and distributing plasmids and their associated data, Addgene is creating a lasting resource for research and discovery scientists around the world.

For more information, visit: http://www.addgene.org/

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