Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Annette M. Walker
Board of Directors
Annette’s current position is President, City of Hope Orange County. An experienced healthcare executive with decades of experience that includes broad roles such as the President of Strategy for Providence St. Joseph Health, the third largest provider organization in the country. Annette has twice been recognized as one of the “Top 100†people in US Healthcare Modern Healthcare, the industry's leading trade journal. In her position at City of Hope, she is responsible for the development of an academic campus that will be Orange County, California's most advanced cancer prevention, treatment and research OP center and hospital. Annette is a solutions architect and nationally recognized strategist, thought leader and author/keynote speaker on transforming the health care industry.
Dr. David C. Lagrew
Board of Directors
David Lagrew, MD OB/GYN is Maternal Fetal Specialist/Clinical Informaticist at Hoag Hospital, Newport Beach, California. Past positions include Executive Medical Director, Women's Services at Providence St. Joseph Health where he manages development of the Ministry's Centers of Excellence and regional Clinical Institute of Women's Health within St. Joseph’s/Providence Health. David’s background also includes extensive executive experience having held the position of Medical Director at Long Beach Memorial as well as Medical Director, Women’s Services at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center prior to his appointment as Executive Director, Women’s Services at St. Joseph’s. David has recently retired from over 35 years of clinical practice and is regarded as a thought leader within the industry. David works part-time on Cern (2 hours/week).
Dr. Melanie Santos, MD FACOG, FPMRS
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Santos is a Urogynecology & Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery Specialist in Fullerton, CA with over 17 years of experience in the medical field. Dr. Santos graduated from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University Medical School in 2004. She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Stanford University, followed by fellowship training for Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery at Emory University. She is affiliated with St. Jude Medical Center, within the Providence St. Joseph Healthcare system. Dr. Santos is Medical Director of Pelvic Health at St. Jude and on executive and national advisory boards for the Providence St. Joseph Women and Children's Institute, while also performing clinical work at St. Jude Heritage Women’s Center in Orange County California. Dr. Santos has considerable experience working in the medical device and pharma area as she consults to various entities and is a key-note speaker internal to Providence Health being responsible for communications with GYN related practitioners within the organization. She is also an advocate for women in medicine, developing the Women Physicans Group at her hospital as well as an annual summit for women in healthcare. Melanie works part-time on Cern (5 hours/week on Cern).
Hyunsook Park, PhD
Director of Microbiology
Dr. Park is a Professor of Microbiology at California State University Los Angeles and has over twenty years of research experience on fungal pathogenesis. As a first-generation immigrant and a woman scientist, her research is naturally geared toward the direction of making a profound impact on improving women’s health. Using C. albicans as a model fungal pathogen, Dr. Park studied how human fungus recognizes the host environmental changes and initiates infection from a part of the normal microbiome. She also studied developing a combination therapy to overcome the limitation of the current antifungal agents to treat oral and vaginal candidiasis.Positions and Education: 2008 – Current, California State University, Los Angeles, 2002 – 2007, Fungal Pathogenesis Research Group at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, 1998-2002. Ph.D. in Microbiology at Ewha Womans University, Korea. Hyunsook works part-time on Cern (20 hours/week on Cern).
Todd Peterson, PhD
Chief Science Advsior
Dr. Todd Peterson is the Founder and Principal of GenApex Bio, a life sciences advisory, investment, and board practice company based in Coronado, California. With over 35 years across academic research and industrial R&D, spanning molecular genetics, genomics, cell biology and synthetic biology engineering, his experience encompasses biotechnology, clinical diagnostics, life science research tools, drug discovery and industrial biotechnology markets, products, and technologies. Prior to GenApex Bio, Dr. Peterson was Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute comprising foundational and applied research programs across its Brain Science, Cell Science, Immunology Institutes, and the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group. Prior to the Allen Institute, Dr. Peterson was Chief Technology Officer at Synthetic Genomics (SGI) where he led an integrated team of scientists, engineers and informaticians to engineer diverse complex living systems. Before joining SGI, he led Synthetic Biology, Cloning and Protein Expression and Genomics R&D at Invitrogen/Life Technologies (now ThermoFisher), a global leader in life science research tools. Dr. Peterson has held industrial R&D leadership and bench scientist positions with increasing responsibilities at Genicon Sciences, Trega Biosciences, Hybritech, Gen-Probe and Immulok, focusing on technology development and product commercialization. Dr. Peterson was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, Germany, received his Ph.D. in Microbiology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, and received his M.A. in Biological Sciences and his B.A. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Todd works part-time on Cern (5 hours/week).
Dr. Jack Sobel
Key Advisor
Dr. Sobel is a consulting Physician, Clinical Advisor, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on infectious diseases of the GYN tract. Dr. Sobel is a widely published and strongly funded physician-researcher. He has been involved in basic science, translational and clinical research since the inception of his Infectious Diseases Research Fellowship in 1976 at the NIH Laboratory of Clinical Investigation. He has served as a consultant for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s special committee for recommending guidelines for the treatment of sexually transmitted disease. He has served as President of the Michigan Infectious Diseases Society from 1997 to 1999, a Member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the National State President’s Committee and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Practice Guidelines Committee. Jack works part-time on Cern (1 hour/week).
Vern Roohk, PhD
PhD, Physiology
Vern Roohk received his PhD in Physiology and Biochemistry from UC Davis in 1971 and did post-doctoral stints in bioengineering at USC and UCLA over the next few years. He has clinical experience as an ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) team member and lab supervisor with the original NIH-funded life-support team at UCI from the mid 1970s. Since then Dr. Roohk has served as lab director and/or IACUC chair for a number of both university and private pre-clinical testing facilities. Dr. Roohk has spent over 50 years in physiology associated with the development and testing of medical devices. Dr. Roohk co-founded American ImmunoTech, LLC, and Vestara in Costa Mesa, CA, which conducted sepsis research utilizing ultraviolet technology in an extracorporeal circuit. Dr Roohk is a recognized expert in Animal Physiology, and in vivo testing. Vern works part-time on Cern (2 hours/week).
Gregg A. Klang
CEO, President and Founder
Founder/Inventor of the Cern Device™. Gregg’s background is principally in business and marketing, with most of his career in technical sales and marketing for a Fortune 50 organization. Gregg has senior management experience, an extensive background in global sales and account management, and extensive training through the Boston Consulting Group. His interest in life sciences has generated multiple patents in the medical device space. In the summer of 2019, Cern Corp. was nominated to participate in the LA-BioStart program for CEOs who are bringing novel and disruptive technologies within the life sciences vertical to market. Education: MBA Pepperdine University, BA Economics University California, Irvine. Greg works full-time Cern.