Instruction Team

Dr. Dan Burnett has a long history of biomedical device design and testing. After working as a general partner with MedVenture Associates, a medical device venture capital firm in Emeryville, CA, Dan launched  Theranova. Since 2006, Theranova has incubated 12 companies and raised over $280M in venture capital and 12M in grant funding. They hold 51 issued patents and currently have products in the market, including their sensor-enabled urinary catheter Accuryn Monitoring System, which received FDA 510(k) clearance in 2016.

He joined the University of California San Francisco as an entrepreneur in residence with QB3 and as adjunct faculty in the Bioengineering Department.

Timothy Buskard has over 25 years of experience in the medical device new product development and project management. He began his career as a systems engineering developing nuclear medicine gamma cameras including SPECT/CT and PET/CT systems. He has worked in ophthalmology, hematology, pulmonology (Class III implantable device) and most recently with Boston Scientific in venous stenting. Tim has held system engineering management and project management leadership roles at Philips Healthcare, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Abbott Hematology, PneumRx/BTG, and Boston Scientific Peripheral Interventions. He holds twopatents for multimodality patient positioning tables.

Walt Cecka has over 25 years of experience in the innovation, design, and development of medical devices and drug/device combination products. Walk has held senior management and product development positions at Nektar Therapeutics, Bio-Molecular Technologies, Baxter Healthcare Corporation (Novacor Division), Cholestech Corporation, Nellcor Inc., and Beckman Instruments.

Walt continues to lead a diverse set of programs at Triple Ring. While covering a broad range of medical device practice spaces, his focus has largely been on drug delivery, ophthalmology, and medical device reprocessing.

Partner, Levine Bagade Han LLP

Johney Han has been a lecturer with MTM for several years and is a partner at the law firm of Levine Bagade Han LLP. His legal practice focuses primarily on patent strategy, due diligence, licensing transactions, protection of trade secrets, and patent opinions in the field of medical devices, mechanical, and electro-mechanical technologies.

Charles Hart is the Director of the Catalyst program. From 2004-2017 he was at Threshold Pharmaceuticals and responsible for both in vitro and in vivo preclinical translational studies. He was also project leader of the global clinical development program for the hypoxia-targeted anticancer drug evofosfamide (TH-302), a partnership with Merck KgaA. Prior to joining Threshold, Charles was the Senior Director of Biology at Galileo Pharmaceuticals, Director of Drug Discovery at Signature Bioscience, and a Research Unit Director at Affymax.

MedTech Strategy Advisors, LLC and MedTech Color

Nada Hanafi is a thought leader within the Life Sciences and MedTech industry with over 22 years of experience across the public and private sectors. She is the Founder of MedTech Strategy Advisors, LLC where she advises life-science companies on regulatory strategy, product development, and clinical research to accomplish regulatory, compliance, and business goals.

Nada holds an MSc in Biomaterials and a BEng in Biomedical Materials Science & Engineering from Queen Mary College, University of London. She earned her MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Nada is a Certified Quality Improvement Associate (CQIA) and a Certified Quality Auditor (CQA) from the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

Syed Hossainy is a subject matter expert on the application of principles of surface/interfacial phenomena to biomedical devices, including blood-contact application. His technical skills include coating methods for biomedical devices, controlled release technology, process and biomaterial selection for implant application, drug delivery formulation, dosing algorithm for local release of targeted lesion, bio absorbable Polymer processing and design as load-bearing, drug–eluting scaffolds, biologic sustained release from Hydrogel formulation, Nano and Micro particle-based drug release technology for vascular and soft-tissue application, and fiber coating and characterization.

Lawrence is Executive Director of IP & Legal, as well as Corporate Secretary for Addition Therapeutics, a gene insertion company.  Prior to joining Addition, Lawrence was IP Counsel for Amgen, Genencor (acquired by DuPont and now iff), and Medarex (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb).

He also worked for the law firms Morrison & Foerster and Wilson Sonsini.  Lawrence’s focus has been in biotechnology, with particular emphasis in patent law.  His doctoral and undergraduate research has focused on computational structural biology and immunology.

Surgeon-in-chief UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, San Francisco: Professor and Chief, Division of Pediatric Surgery, UCSF

Dr. Hanmin Lee is the Michael Harrison endowed Professor and Surgeon-in-Chief of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and PI of the UCSF/Stanford PDC. He is internationally recognized as a leader in fetal surgery, minimally invasive neonatal surgery and surgical innovation.

David’s practice includes domestic and foreign patent drafting and prosecution, trademark prosecution, IP portfolio management, and strategy development. His practice also includes intellectual property due diligence and all aspects of intellectual property licensing and patent litigation support.

David has previously worked as a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in a medical device art group (3763/3734, primarily class 604) and interned for Chief Judge H.R. Mayer of the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He was also an Associate in the life science patent group of Morrison & Foerster and operated a successful solo practice. As a member of the state bar of California, he is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

VP, Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs

Rebecca Lin is a seasoned healthcare innovator with expertise at the intersection of MedTech and AI. She has extensive experience in sales, marketing, corporate strategy, and business development through her roles at leading corporations like Johnson & Johnson and CR Bard, as well as high-growth startups. She serves as Vice President and board member of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, supporting the innovation ecosystem. She lectures at UCSF and UC Berkeley, leveraging her diverse academic background in biology, psychology, and business.

Devyani Nanduri has over 12 years of experience in leading regulatory and clinical initiatives in the medical devices industry. She has advanced a variety of novel technologies to the market, including aneural implant for headaches and the first retinal prosthesis that restores sight to the blind. She is currently the Director of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at Abbott Neuromodulation.

In her current role, she oversees the regulatory intelligence, clinical strategy and clinical operations for the current commercial device and future products. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, a Master’s in Regulatory Science and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from USC. Devyani is named an inventor on 3 patents, has published in journals, conference proceedings and textbooks.

Marc Shuman is a hematologist with a deep interest in faculty mentoring. He has mentored UCSF faculty for several years. His primary interest is in advising faculty in translational research, integrating disease-based and basic research. He has served as an NIH-funded Principal Investigator and Attending Physician for more than 30 years. Several of the faculty Marc has mentored, are now professors leading their own research programs at the University of California, San Francisco and other institutions.

Director, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, UCSF

Joanne is Director and Brenda and Jeffrey L. Kang Presidential Chair in Health Care Financing at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies (IHPS), University of California San Francisco. Her research focuses on the economics of the health care workforce, organization of health care services, and quality of health care. Dr. Spetz is an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She received a Mentorship Award from the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Nursing Issues of AcademyHealth. She was a member of the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Committee on Consideration of Generational Issues in Workforce Management and Employment Practices and the Institute of Medicine Standing Committee on Credentialing Research in Nursing.

Kate Stephenson is a long-term resident of California’s Silicon Valley, with an active network spanning the start-up community, including R1 academic centers, incubators, investors, and startups. She has a deep technical consulting background in health innovation. Her 20 year history of strategic early-stage technical projects includes novel medical products, including medical device, digital health, drug delivery, and pharma.

Her 3 key areas of expertise include identifying and evaluating new ventures, strategic planning for transferring emerging technology into successful products, and building partnerships between diverse stakeholders in innovation ecosystems.

Resident Physician, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, UCSF

Casey began her career in Medical Device Research and Development after graduating with a degree in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2017. She later transitioned to a career in medicine and is now completing a residency in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the UCSF. Her research is focused on the use of biomaterials and tissue engineering in soft tissue reconstruction.

Daniel is Daniel is an attorney focusing primarily on patent prosecution, trademark prosecution, and intellectual propertydue diligence associated with mergers and acquisition and investment transactions. He has drafted and prosecuted patent applications for startups of all stages, academic and research institutions, and multinational corporations. Daniel has drafted patent applications in a wide variety of technical fields including medical devices, medical imaging, dental apparatus and treatments, diagnostic kits and devices, genetic sequencing, stem cell treatments, engineered nanoparticles, consumer hardware, and software.

Dan was previously an associate with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Morrison & Foerster. In addition to his practice, Dan also mentors law students at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco and UCBerkeley School of Law. Dan is a member of the state bar of California and registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Tiffany Yu is Associate Director of Life Sciences at Guidehouse, a leading global provider of consulting services to the public sector and commercial markets, with broad capabilities in management, technology,and risk consulting. She is a Life Sciences and HEOR Consultant with specialized expertise in healtheconomics and outcomes research, with a record of rigorous research published in peer-reviewed journals and has presented at professional society conferences.