ECHO Pitch Keynote Presentation

Dr. John H. Wong is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fluid Biomed Inc., a medical device company of 30 people based in Calgary, Canada, developing a bioabsorbable neurovascular stent to treat brain aneurysms. He is an associate professor in the Departments of Clinical Neurosciences and Radiology at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. He serves as Director of Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Neurosurgery and maintains an active surgical practice dedicated to treating patients with brain aneurysms and stroke.

Dr. Wong received his medical education and neurosurgical training at the University of Alberta. After fellowship sub-specialization in neurovascular surgery at Yale University and interventional neuroradiology in New York City, he was recruited to Calgary in 2001. Dr. Wong has authored 95 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has served on several grant review panels including for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

He has previously held several leadership roles including Head of Neurosurgery at the University of Calgary, President of the provincial Alberta Neurosurgical Society and President of the Canadian Neurosurgical Society. Dr. Wong completed an MBA at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a double major in Finance and Entrepreneurship & Innovation and was recognized with the Dean’s Leadership Award.

Dr. Keith Pardee is an Associate Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto.  He is cross appointed to the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and is a Faculty Affiliate in the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.  In addition, Dr. Pardee is a scientist-entrepreneur and Lead Mentor at the Health Innovation Hub (H2i), where he works with emerging health ventures and their founders.

His training began in the fields of botany (BSc, University of Alberta) and Natural Products Chemistry (MSc, University of British Columbia) and transitioned to protein structure and function during his PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of Toronto.  His postdoctoral studies at the Wyss Institute (Harvard University) served to translate this fundamental training into his current focus in applied biology.

The Pardee Lab works at the intersection of synthetic biology and human health, developing molecular, hardware, and computational technologies for diagnostics, distributed biomanufacturing, and therapeutic discovery. A central theme of the lab is translating new technologies beyond the academic setting. These efforts have led to the co-founding of three trainee-led ventures: LSK Technologies (acquired by Nicoya Lifesciences), En Carta Diagnostics, and Liberum Biotech.