The following members of the executive team are the original founders of Breath Diagnostics and each has been instrumental in the design and testing of the technologies and application of OneBreath™.
Michael Bousamra II, MD
President & co-CEO
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 President & Co-CEO of the Company.
Michael H. Nantz, Ph.D.
Co-Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Nantz is a Professor and past Chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Louisville. He has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is Inventor on 17 issued U.S. patents. He also has authored two chemistry textbooks that have been internationally adopted and used in advanced organic synthesis courses at more than 200 Universities. He has been a Principal Investigator on 10 major state/federal research projects and served on review committees of major scientific institutions. He has co-founded 3 startup companies and currently serves on the Board of Directors for two of these companies.
Applications of aminooxy compounds have been a primary focus of Dr. Nantz’s research program for the past 10 years. His research lab at the University of Louisville developed the proprietary coatings used in silicon microreactors for breath analysis. Dr. Nantz has directed an organic synthesis research group comprised of graduate students and postdoctoral associates for nearly 30 years and has produced 28 Ph.D. graduates to date. Since 2007, Dr. Nantz has worked closely with Dr. Xiao-An Fu of the UofL Department of Chemical Engineering toward developing silicon-based microreactors for the selective capture of volatile organic compounds from exhaled breath. This collaboration led to the co-founding of Breath Diagnostics, Inc. Dr. Nantz currently serves as the Co-CEO of the company.
Dr. Xiao-An (Sean) Fu, Ph.D.
Vice President
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 the Vice President of the Company.
Victor van Berkel, MD, Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
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 the Chief Medical Officer of the Company.
Sadakatali Gori, PhD
Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Gori has broad expertise in chemistry, with specific training in synthetic process development and metabolomic screening. He has published 3 peer-reviewed journal articles and is inventor on one patent application. He worked at Evonik Industries in Germany, where he led 2 major synthetic projects for process development of pharmaceutical intermediates, which resulted in a large-scale production of these intermediates. He worked at National Institute for Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) in Gujarat, India, where he supervised MS-level pharmacy students. Prior to that, he worked at Unimark Remedies Ltd., where he developed HPLC processes for the Quality Control department to conduct assays and check chromatographic purity of pharmaceutical ingredients and products.
In July 2016, Dr. Gori joined Breath Diagnostics, Inc. and has led the development of the breath analysis technology. He has been intimately involved with design and optimization of the microreactor and integrated evacuation station to capture cancer markers. He has secured federal funding for development of the OneBreath test. He currently serves as the COO of BDx and oversees daily operations of the company.