GUILFORD, Conn.– Tesseract Health™ Inc. has named industry veteran and entrepreneur Vasiliki (Vicky) Demas, Ph.D. as its Chief Executive Officer, effective August 1, 2021. Dr. Demas brings over 20 years’ experience to the company with a deep history of innovation and discovery in diagnostic platforms (wearable and point of care), medical devices, and nanotechnology.
Dr. Demas joins Tesseract with a focused vision to usher in a new branch of diagnostics fusing the best of imaging and laboratory medicine through further development of the company’s groundbreaking Tesseract iC™ eye-imaging diagnostic technology platform. The company’s aggressive plan includes continuing to advance the technology development and pursuing regulatory approvals necessary to launch the world’s first platform to support point-of-care screening, diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of a wide range of diseases efficiently, affordably, and without drawing a drop of blood.
“Our mission is to democratize healthcare on a global scale. Vicky has the leadership, technical, and strategic acumen required to fork history, creating a new branch on the diagnostic tree between radiology and laboratory medicine,” commented company founder, Dr. Jonathan Rothberg. “I am more excited than ever for Tesseract‘s opportunity to improve healthcare, lower costs, increase health-equity and be there when someone we love needs it.”
“I am excited and honored to join Jonathan and the Tesseract team to help develop and bring to patients a new platform for the monitoring and early diagnosis of disease,” commented Dr. Demas.
Before joining Tesseract as CEO, Dr. Demas led the development of new products at the cancer screening company GRAIL, where she also managed the scientific and technology portfolio and led a cross functional competitive intelligence program. She supported the development of the core platform technology which formed the basis of the company’s first multi cancer early detection test (Galleri), and she led GRAIL’s post-diagnostic efforts. Prior to joining GRAIL, she was a founding member of the Google Life Sciences (GLS) team within Google [x], which was later spun out to form Verily. At Verily, she led several teams and projects, including in diagnostics, medical devices, and translational laboratory science, and helped build its multidisciplinary science and engineering programs. Before Verily, Dr. Demas held multiple positions of responsibility at T2 Biosystems. She currently holds over 20 patents and has authored and co-authored numerous publications across multiple disciplines. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab/Livermore Lab.
