Amit Kumar
Amit Kumar is currently Chairman of the Board of three companies, one public biotech company, one private biotech, and one public solar energy company (ITUS:NASDAQ, BioCeryx, and ASTI:NASDAQ). He also sits on two other boards (AOLS:OTCBB) and Band funded company NGXbio. He also sits on the National Board of Directors of the American Cancer Society. Previously he was CEO of Geo Fossil Fuels, an energy company. Before GFF, Dr. Kumar (June 30, 2010) left his position as President and CEO of CombiMatrix Corporation (CBMX:NASDAQ), a position he held since September 2001. CBMX is a biotech company that Dr. Kumar took public, and is focused on genetic analysis to enable personalized medical management for patients. He is also an advisor to other companies in the Cleantech/Energy and Life Science industries. Previously, he was VP Life Sciences for Acacia Research Corporation (ACTG: NASDAQ), a publicly traded venture capital firm. Previous to that he was the founding CEO of Signature BioSciences, a drug discovery company. Prior to Signature, Dr. Kumar was engaged as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Oak Investment Partners, a venture capital firm. Previous to Oak, Dr. Kumar was Senior Manager for Futures Technology and General Manager for IDEXX (NASDAQ:IDXX) Laboratories' west coast R&D operations. Prior to IDEXX, Dr. Kumar was Program Manager for New Technology at Idetek. He has also been an advisor or consultant to Fortune 500 companies, venture capital firms, and private early stage healthcare companies. Dr. Kumar has over 60 peer-reviewed technical publications and holds over a dozen patents with several others pending. He also has extensive experience working with the US government, having presented to members of the House and Senate as well as major defense organizations. Amit received his AB Degree from Occidental College, followed by studies at Stanford University and Caltech, where he received his PH.D. After Caltech, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University.