LRIG New England
LRIG New England is a rapidly growing special interest group focused on laboratory automation. Our membership consists of scientists and engineers, primarily from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, with chapters across the US and in Europe. Our semi-annual regional meetings are informal and are intended to facilitate communication and to share current best practices and experiences in laboratory automation. Presentations and vendor exhibits cover such topics as high throughput screening, drug discovery, combinatorial chemistry, compound purification and distribution, data management, pharmaceutical dosage form, dissolution testing and product formulation along with others.
Executive Board
The LRIG Executive Board consists of industry experts from around the region that volunteer their time to help facilitate innovation in the life sciences
Rita is the CWO of The Robot Whisperer, LLC, a liquid handling automation and process engineering consultancy she founded in 2007. Rita has 20 years of experience as a bench scientist and liquid handling specialist in life science laboratories. Previously, she was a Lab Automation Manager at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and a Field Automation Specialist with Tecan.
In her practice at The Robot Whisperer, Rita supports big pharma as well as biotech and diagnostics companies in the standardization and transfer of assays and processes onto automated liquid handlers of various manufacturers, in the subsequent verification and documentation of the performance of these processes for labs under compliance requirements, as well as configuration, customization, troubleshooting and maintenance of liquid handling equipment. Rita holds a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from Worcester State University
In her practice at The Robot Whisperer, Rita supports big pharma as well as biotech and diagnostics companies in the standardization and transfer of assays and processes onto automated liquid handlers of various manufacturers, in the subsequent verification and documentation of the performance of these processes for labs under compliance requirements, as well as configuration, customization, troubleshooting and maintenance of liquid handling equipment. Rita holds a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from Worcester State University
Dr. Wendel is the Head of Sample Management and Engineering group at the Novartis in Cambridge, MA, a group which is responsible for the daily production of compound plates for the NIBR Screening groups globall. Prior to joining Novartis, Dr. Wendel was at the Broad Institute in Cambridge where he managed the Compound Management. Earlier in his career Dr. Wendel served in a variety of roles within Zymark Corporation and has served as the Chair of the SiLA-US committee.
Daniel has more than 25 years of experience in the automation industry working as an instrument provider with Zymark (now PerkinElmer) and TekCel (now Hamilton Storage) and within research with Millennium (now Takeda), Amgen, and most recently Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research. Daniel has now started his own company so he can use his broad experience to aide companies as they begin or enhance their laboratory automation needs.
Bill is a life sciences technology leader with broad experience across pharmaceutical and biotech research. He is a specialist in informatics and laboratory automation technology development, evaluation and transfer and an experienced project manager leading cross-functional teams across international sites with a proven track record on delivering successful business outcomes. He is also skilled at developing and implementing business processes which improve operational efficiency.
Currently working on building Relay’s platform infrastructure including, identification and implementation of vendor solution, key process integrations and automated solutions for sample management and HTS screening. Formally starting my career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. in the Clone Processing labs and moving through Quality Research Management and into Compound Management. I carried these skills into starting Constellation Pharmaceuticals Inc. and seeing Constellation through a fairly large collaboration with Genentech. Of course, being involved in LRIG has been instrumental in my personal and professional growth.
Marsha is an Organic Chemist and Automation Professional with over 31 years experience. She has received numerous patents in Polymer Technology while employed as a Research Chemist for Dow Chemical Company. She has held various positions such as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for TekCel Corporation, Applications Engineer, Automation trainer and Sales and Zymate Systems Executive for Zymark Corporation; Automation Sales Consultant in Drug Discovery for Beckman Coulter and a Senior Sales Account Manager for Caliper Life Sciences. She is a member of the ACS, Women in Science and on the Framingham University Alumni board. She received her BS in Chemistry from Framingham State University and graduate training in Biochemistry at Brandeis University and Business Management at Boston University.