Cord Blood Officers

Kurtzberg Re-Elected President
of Cord Blood Association

Issued: June 11, 2016

Joanne Kurtzberg, MD, director of the Carolinas Cord Blood Bank, Durham, N.C., has been re-elected president of the Cord Blood Association.  The international nonprofit organization, founded in 2014, promotes public and private banking and the use of umbilical cord blood and related tissues for disease treatment and regenerative therapies.  

The election of officers occurred at the second annual meeting of the association’s Board of Directors at the International Cord Blood Symposium in San Francisco.

Joanne Kurtzberg CBA President

Others elected to office were: 

  • Vice president – Kenneth Giacin, MS, MBA, Vice Chairman and Chief Business Officer, StemCyte International, Baldwin Park, Calif.
  • Secretary – Gesine Kögler, PhD, Director, Jose Carreras Cord Blood Bank and GMP Facility, University of Duesseldorf Medical Center, Duesseldorf, Germany
  • Treasurer – Geoffrey Crouse, MBA/MPH, former Chief Executive Officer, Cord Blood Registry, San Francisco

 

The association’s members are public and private banks and individuals within and served by the cord blood community.  Its 13-member board of directors has a “tripartite” membership, as required in the association’s bylaws.  Four seats are for representatives of public banks, four for private or family banks, and five from the banking community at large.  The at-large directors may be research investigators, transplant clinicians, patients, parents, obstetricians, pediatricians, nurses, midwives, vendors, health policy experts or regulatory officials. 

Other members of the Board of Directors of the CBA are: 

  • Sue Armitage, BS, retired Assistant Director, MD Anderson Cord Blood Bank, Houston
  • David Blackett, Vice President of Marketing and Strategy, PerkinElmer ViaCord, Waltham, Mass. 
  • Haywood Brown, MD, Chair, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C. 
  • Colleen Delaney, MD, MSc, Director, Program in Cord Blood Research and Transplantation, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
  • Arthur Flatau, PhD, Patient Advocate, Bone Marrow Transplant Survivor, Austin, Texas
  • Richard L. Lockie, MBA, President & CEO, Insception Biosciences Inc., Toronto
  • Aby J. Mathew, PhD, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, BioLife Solutions, Inc., Bothell, Wash.
  • Beth H. Shaz, MD, Chief Medical Officer & Senior Vice President, New York Blood Center, New York
  • Mahendra Rao, MBBS, PhD, Vice President for Regenerative Medicine, New York Stem Cell Foundation, New York

 Alan Leahigh, former executive director of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, is serving as chief executive officer for the association.