Robert C. McCarthy, PhD.
President

Bob has over 20 years experience in developing biochemical reagents for the research community. From 1987 to 2001, Bob held various positions at Boehringer Mannheim/Roche Diagnostics in their Biochemicals Division (now Roche Applied Sciences). This included leadership of a project team that led to development of the Liberase Purified Enzyme product line. He introduced two new tools into the R&D environment during the course of this project: quality functional deployment to link technology to customer needs and design of experiments to accelerate the formulation to islet specific, TDE products.

In September, 2003, he co-founded VitaCyte with Francis Dwulet. Bob has been the Principal Investigator on the firm’s 3 Phase I & a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research awards from NIH and an award from the 21st Century Research and Technology Fund supported by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. These funds and additional funding by the 21st Century Research and Technology Fund SBIR match awards has enabled VitaCyte fund its R&D programs. In his spare time, Bob remains an active participant in the Center of Technology Innovation Management at Northwestern University where he participates in small projects and lectures to undergraduate and graduate students about the explosive change in the pharmaceutical industry to reduce the costs of drug development.

Francis F. Dwulet
Chief Scientific Officer

Francis has over 20 years experience in development of protein purification procedures for research and biotechnology applications. From 1987 to 2001, Francis was responsible for development or improving the purification of proteins that were manufactured in Indianapolis for the Boehringer Mannheim Biochemicals (now Roche Applied Sciences). Over 80 biochemical reagents and kits passed through his laboratory, which included development of standardized protocols and documentation for protein purification, modification, labeling, purity determination, and stability testing. He developed analytical manual and HPLC protocols at the microgram to milligram scale which were later scaled to production scale which led to generation of hundreds of grams of purified product. This activity included development of purification procedures used to purify enzymes for the Liberase product line.

After leaving Roche in 2001, he has held positions at Eli Lilly and Company and Cook Pharmica that involved developing/improving purification procedures used in for biopharmaceutical applications. Francis spends his free time vegetable gardening that reflects his roots of growing up on a farm in New Jersey.

Michael Green, PhD.
Senior Research Scientist

After earning his doctorate degree from Purdue University, Mike worked in academic and industry positions in which he focused on elucidating the mechanism of kidney disease as well as developing assay technology for diagnostic assays. As his team works to define the optimal conditions for porcine and human islet cell and hepatocyte isolations, Mike is constantly seeking ways to help researchers understand the characteristics and composition of tissue dissociation enzymes used for islet and hepatocyte isolations. Mike’s vision for VitaCyte is to be known as the primary source of practical knowledge in tissue dissociation which can be shared with his colleagues around the world. In his spare time, Mike enjoys working on handyman projects around his home, gardening, and watching college football.

William F. Demyan, PhD.
Senior Research Scientist

Bill earned his doctorate degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center and brings 20 years of academic and industrial research to his position. At VitaCyte he collaborates with other members of the research team on projects designed improve the characterization of tissue dissociating enzymes. In addition, Bill oversees the document control system with the goal of moving to cGMP manufacture of enzyme products. With over a decade of experience leading the Technical Service department at Roche Applied Science, he is committed to helping our customers successfully use our products in a wide range of experimental models. When not in the lab, Bill enjoys working on projects ranging from furniture design to motorcycle repair while listening to selections form his eclectic library of music which totals more than 2,000 albums.

Andrew G. Breite, MS, MBA
Senior Research Scientist

Drew has been a key member of the VitaCyte staff making significant contributions to the characterization of bacterial collagenase and neutral protease enzymes. After earning his masters degree from Purdue University he began working on assay development projects for Roche Diagnostics and later for emerging companies. In addition to his work on recombinant enzyme expression, Drew has developed many key assays and production procedures which are the foundation of our quality system. He firmly believes that the extensive characterization of our purified enzyme products will lead to new knowledge and further improve the applications in cell isolation procedures. Drew enjoys listening to music, creative cooking, hiking, and challenging physical workouts when he is not working on new assays and product documentation.

Kelley Nonweiler, AS
Research Scientist

The wide range of techniques and procedures used by VitaCyte provides a great fit for Kelley who earned her associates degree at Ivy Tech. As a Research Scientist she performs a wide range of analytical assays used to characterize enzymes during our purification process. She is also actively involved with VitaCyte’s research program, improving enzymatic tissue dissociation procedures and overseeing the culture of the isolated cells. Kelley’s ability to switch between laboratory disciplines makes her a key contributor to the problem solving the challenges required to develop and manufacture robust, purified enzyme products. As the only true native of Indianapolis in the entire company, Kelley enjoys skydiving, playing in a professional football fantasy league, and making canoe trips on the area’s many rivers.

Charles Koehler, BS, CPA
Chief Financial Officer

Charles provides strategic guidance to ensure that VitaCyte adheres to current standards of business practice. After receiving his degree in Accounting from the University of Evansville, he began his career with the Internal Revenue Service. He moved into public accounting and eventually into roles of increasing responsibility in finance specializing in emerging firms. Charles focuses his energy to understand customer needs so that the ease of doing business with VitaCyte is a key reason for successful partnerships. Charles stays busy in his so called leisure time by serving on the advisory board for the Salvation Army in addition to traveling and playing golf.

Bernard Janoson, BS
Director, Sales and Marketing

After earning his degree in microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh, he worked on various research projects as well as in a clinical laboratory. Since moving over to the business side, Bernie brings over 20 years of sales and product commercialization experience in life science research and medical devices markets. He works closely with the management team to ensure that customer feedback is incorporated into VitaCyte’s continuous improvement initiatives so that we can deliver well characterized and consistent quality tissue dissociation enzymes to researchers around the world. Bernie is focused helping the entire company meet the goal of creating customer loyalty by providing customized products for the broad range of applications in use today. Outside of work he enjoys long distance running, cooking, and working on various community service projects with his fellow Rotary club members.