Leadership

Brian T. Ennis

President & CEO

Brian brings 35+ years of medical device and biotech experience to his role as the President & CEO at Breath Diagnostics.  His pedigree reflects an upward progression within several large medical device companies including C.R. Bard, Stryker, Wright Medical, and Empi.  He also was the President & CEO of Etex Corporation.  Brian has extensive international and domestic experience in diverse market segments including, the full range of orthopedic implants, pain management, capital equipment, endoscopy, etc.

Michael Bousamra II, MD

Chairman, Founder

Dr. Bousamra is a thoracic surgeon with twenty-four years of surgical experience, with a special interest in lung cancer. His research interests involve the detection of lung cancer by analysis of exhaled carbonyl compounds in breath and investigations of the in vivo metabolism of human tumors as related to host immune response and regenerative metabolism. To date, Dr. Bousamra has studied over 800 subjects by breath analysis. This work has been performed in close collaboration with a team of chemists, chemical engineers, immunologists and structural biologists. Over the past nine years he also has been a member of a team that studies the metabolic activity of lung tumors. This metabolomic study involved utilization of 13C-glucose, given to patients prior to surgical resection of the tumor and associated normal tissue. The results led to the discovery of unexpected metabolic perturbations, and potentially new molecular targets. Dr. Bousamra’s extensive metabolomic research led directly to his work in breath analysis of carbonyl cancer markers in the breath.

Dr. Bousamra is a co-Founder of Breath Diagnostics, Inc. and currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company.

Xiao-An (Sean) Fu, PhD

Director, Founder

Dr. Fu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Louisville.  He has over 15 years of research experience in developing microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors, gas sensors, and SiC integrated circuits (IC) for harsh environment applications.  Since 2008, he has focused on development of silicon microreactors fabricated by MEMS technology for analysis of trace volatile organic compounds in air and exhaled breath.  He was the principal investigator for developing the microreactor technology funded by National Science Foundation and a co-investigator for using breath analysis for identification biomarkers of Tuberculosis in exhaled breath funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  He initiated and directed the project of breath analysis for identification of lung cancer markers in exhaled breath and using breath analysis for diagnosis of lung cancer at the James Graham Brown Cancer of the University Hospital at the University of Louisville.  Dr. Fu collaborated with Dr. Michael H. Nantz to develop chemoselective microreactors for quantitative analysis of carbonyl VOCs in air and with two thoracic surgeons Drs. Bousamra and van Berkel to apply this technology to detect lung cancer.  These collaborations have resulted in several high impact conference presentations and publications of breath analysis for diagnosis of lung cancer.

Dr. Fu is a co-Founder of Breath Diagnostics, Inc. and currently serves as a Director of the company.

Victor van Berkel, MD, PhD

Director, Founder

Dr. van Berkel serves as Surgical Director of Lung Transplant at Jewish Hospital, Louisville, KY.  The majority of his clinical practice involves the treatment of lung cancer, and his recent research is focused on novel mechanisms for screening at-risk populations for lung cancer.  He is capable of designing the clinical aspects of the breath analysis study, as well as critically assessing the OneBreath data.

Dr. van Berkel is a co-Founder of Breath Diagnostics, Inc. and currently serves as a Director of the company.

Phillip Douglas

Director

Phil is a seasoned executive with 35+ years of management and Board experience spanning diverse organizational settings and industries.  In addition to serving as a Director of Breath Diagnostics, Phil serves on the Board of Directors of Kure Smart Pain Management and Oceans Healthcare.  Previously, Phil served as the Chairman and CEO of LifeCare Health Partners which operated 24 facilities in 9 states, and experienced significant revenue and earnings growth under Phil’s leadership.  He co-founded and lead ‘HealthSpring’ and ‘Management and Technology Solutions’; both companies were private equity backed physician services organizations.  Phil also has held senior executive positions in Humana, United Healthcare, and Workscape.

Jeffrey Rich, MD

Director

Dr. Rich is currently the Cleveland Clinic’s Chairman of Operations and Strategy for the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute. Dr. Rich previously served as the Surgical Director of the Sentara Cardiac Research Institute. Dr. Rich also formerly served as past President of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and held leadership positions within the National Quality Forum (NQF). In addition, Dr. Rich served as the Director of the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). While at CMS he was involved in critical policy development to help restructure US healthcare into a value driven healthcare delivery system. He testified four times before Congress and has served on Federal Advisory Committees for CMS as well as the FDA Circulatory System Devices Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee.