About LRIG Bay Area

 LRIG Bay Area Board of Directors

Michael Biros, Executive Chair
mbiros@lrigbayarea.org

Mike has over 20 years experience working for companies developing emerging technologies that accelerate life science research. He’s held marketing and sales roles at several early-stage instrumentation companies. He led the marketing group for Drug Discovery instrumentation at Molecular Devices prior to their acquisition by MDS. Since 2002 he’s been the Executive Chair of LRIG, Bay Area Chapter. He is an active member in the Society for Biomolecular Screening, recently co-chairing the academic internship project. Mike holds an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Cellular Biology from U.C. San Diego, and an MBA from the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. He currently works for Biocius Life Sciences.

Michael Bova, Program Chair
mbova@lrigbayarea.org

Michael Bova is currently Director of Target Advancement at élan pharmaceutical where he co-chairs the Technology End User Forum. At élan, Dr. Bova championed the application of High Content Analysis towards CNS applications. Prior to élan, Dr. Bova worked at Sugen, where he developed kinase and phosphatase assays amenable to HTS. Dr. Bova received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from UCLA and performed his post-doctoral fellowship at the Jules Stein Eye Institute where he elucidated the role that small heat shock proteins play in protein folding diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and cataract.

Amer El-Hage, Treasurer
ahaj@lrigbayarea.org

Amer is an independent consultant in product development and project management for transfer of scientific, medical and laboratory instruments from engineering concept to quality manufacturing.

From 1991 to 2000 he was the Director of Engineering Programs at LJL BioSystems, and following its acquisition at Molecular Devices until 2004. Prior to LJL, Amer held engineering, manufacturing and project management positions at Beckman Instruments and Varian Associates.

Amer provides technical knowledge and expertise in instrument packaging design and automation, micro-fluidics, plastic molding, Opto-mechanical, and BioMEMS applications. He is versed in product design, verification and validation processes, ISO and FDA quality Design Control systems, and regulatory compliance and agency certifications. He collaborates with clients through his extensive network for ideal product development solutions. He currently chairs the Society of Bimolecular Sciences (SBS) Microplate Standards Development. He was the chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Santa Clara Valley Section in 2005-06.

Mr. El-Hage’s name as an inventor is on fourteen US and two international patents. Amer co-authored journal articles and made presentations at international Laboratory Automation conferences and at academic institutions. He currently is a part-time lecturer of Biomechanics at San Jose State University in 2009.

Amer received his M.Sc. in Engineering with distinction from UC Berkeley in 1980.