TeloMe People

Preston W. Estep III, Ph.D., CEO and Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Estep received his B.S. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard University. He performed his doctoral research in The Harvard Molecular Technology Group laboratory of genomics pioneer and TeloMe co-founder Professor George Church. Dr. Estep is the founder and former CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of the human longevity biotech company Longenity, Inc. He is on multiple advisory boards of non-profit and startup organizations, and he is a director of the Personal Genome Project based at Harvard Medical School.

George M. Church, Ph.D., Co-founder

Dr. Church is a founding partner of TeloMe and is Professor of Genetics and Director of The Harvard Molecular Technology Group and The Lipper Center for Computational Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He is an elected member of both the United States National Academy of Sciences and the United States National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Church received his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Dr. Walter Gilbert at Harvard University. Dr. Church is a pioneer and recognized leader in DNA sequencing, genomics, bioinformatics, and synthetic biology and he is an author of over 200 scientific publications and dozens of issued U.S. and worldwide patents on these subjects. Dr. Church is the founder of the trailblazing Personal Genome Project at Harvard Medical School, which seeks to sequence the genomes of 100,000 human volunteers. He is an advisor to many genomics and technology companies, and his laboratory often works with them in collaborative research. He co-developed the first direct method of genomic sequencing in 1984, and later helped found the Stanford, Waltham, and MIT Genome Centers. He invented the broadly applied concept of tagged molecular multiplexing, and a parallel array DNA synthesizer. Dr. Church directs one of the largest academic research labs in the world.

Steven C. Trider, M.B.A., Co-founder and Chief Business Adviser

Steven graduated with a BSc in Computer Science from Dalhousie University and an MBA from Saint Mary's University, both of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Steven has held senior management and advisory positions in pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies over the past two decades. Steven was Chief Operating Officer at Santa Barbara Medical Innovations, General Manager & Director at Agera Laboratories, Senior Vice President, The Americas & Global Business Development at Isolagen, Vice President, Global Marketing at Inamed Corporation. Prior to his tenure at Inamed, Steven was the Director of Strategic Marketing for Bristol-Myers Squibb. He also spent 10 years with DuPont and DuPont Merck in roles of increasing responsibility in the U.S. and Canadian business operations.

Don Wang, Co-founder and Vice President of Operations

Don holds a Masters degree in Immunology from Harvard University, and has been a founding member of many startup ventures. He is the founder of Biopike, an international distribution company that specializes in biomedical supplies in Asia, as well as the production and supply of reagents and materials for the diagnostic industries in the U.S. and China. Don also was the Director of Product Development and Procurement at Angstrom Microsystems, Inc. which engineers and manufactures high performance computing systems. Don was a co-founder of Chemdex Corporation in 1997, the first e-commerce company in the biomedical supply industry.

Shelly Elizabeth, Chief Financial Officer

Shelly received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Missouri. Over the past 30 years she has been the CFO of multiple technology and engineering companies and startups.

Alex Hoekstra, Director of Communications

Alex graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Genomics and Molecular Genetics. Alex leads TeloMe’s communications, internet and social media outreach efforts, and he organizes the company’s crowdfunding campaigns.