John Davidson has spent 20 years in Research and Development leadership roles in both large company and startup settings. He works on projects at the interface between biochemistry, molecular biology and novel instrumentation. His first biotech position was at Blue Heron Biotechnology in Bothell, WA, where he rose to head of R&D reporting to the CSO. Blue Heron was the first Gene synthesis company to provide guaranteed delivery of any DNA sequence including highly repetitive or GC rich molecules. This was achieved by two independent lines of fully automated gene assembly platforms that included cell free DNA repair processes developed by Davidson. Following Blue Heron, Davidson took a position for the semiconductor based DNA sequencing start up, Ion Torrent in Guilford CT. Davidson joined Ion Torrent very early as was part of the team to demonstrate feasibility for semiconductor based DNA sequencing and realize an exit to Life Technologies within 3 years for $725MM. John remained with Life Technologies and the subsequent merger with ThermoFisher Scientific as the Senior Director for R&D and was technical lead for the launch of the flagship Proton DNA Sequencer and associated automated sample prep solutions. Most recently John co-founded Tangen Biosciences where he served as Chief Scientific Officer and sits as a Board Director. Tangen Biosciences is a molecular diagnostic company with a platform technology that developed lab based and point of care applications in the infectious disease diagnostic space, including a rapid blood test to detect Anthrax which was funded by BARDA with John as the Prime Contractor for the project. John received his PhD from Harvard University and completed a post-doc with Dr Larry Loeb at the University of Washington developing methods to measure random mutations in cancer before embarking on his career in Biotechnology and Clinical Diagnostics.