05/26/2021
D. Geoffrey Vince, PhD, Appointed Executive Director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations
Cleveland Clinic has named D. Geoffrey Vince, PhD, as Executive Director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations.
In this newly formed role, Dr. Vince will align Cleveland Clinic's technology development strategies with scientific and research priorities-including unprecedented growth in data and computing sciences-to accelerate the development of new treatments and drugs. He will build strategic partnerships and alliances in these areas to drive revenue growth through commercialization of intellectual property.
"Dr. Vince's appointment to the helm of Cleveland Clinic Innovations is a key part of our new global strategy for research and innovations," said Serpil Erzurum, MD, Cleveland Clinic's Chief Research and Academic Officer. "His visionary leadership style and wealth of experience in healthcare and industry make him the ideal person to lead Cleveland Clinic Innovations and its critical work to market the breakthrough inventions of our caregivers into new medical products and companies that benefit our patients."
Dr. Vince has vast experience as a researcher, inventor and leader in both academia and industry, coupling expertise in biomedical engineering research with broad understanding of business practices and goals. His virtual histology technology was licensed by Volcano Corp., which later sold to Philips.
Dr. Vince has been chair of Lerner Research Institute's Department of Biomedical Engineering for a decade. He was the principal investigator on Cleveland Clinic's National Center for Accelerated Innovations and holds a dozen patents and several research grants from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Dr. Vince's areas of research interest include vascular imaging; image and signal processing; and atherosclerotic plaque characteristics, which are pertinent to heart disease and stroke. His team is developing mathematical algorithms based on quantitative ultrasound and acoustic radiation force impulse imaging that can more precisely analyze ultrasound images of carotid arteries. In 2020, he received a Cleveland Clinic Hickey Innovation Impact Award for his concept of a "breathalyzer" to rapidly diagnose COVID-19.
Innovations, the commercialization arm of Cleveland Clinic, turns medical breakthrough inventions into patient-benefiting medical products and companies using a unique approach to assess, protect, build, test and market the most promising ideas of Cleveland Clinic caregivers. Founded in 2000, Cleveland Clinic Innovations has helped launch more than 80 start-up companies.
"Cleveland Clinic has an extraordinarily innovative culture, in which all caregivers are encouraged to develop new ideas to improve patient care," said Dr. Vince. "Cleveland Clinic Innovations serves to facilitate those inventions with the most promise for fueling medical advances and economic growth in Northeast Ohio. We look forward to continuing this tradition while implementing new business strategies."
Dr. Vince holds the Virginia Lois Kennedy Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Cleveland Clinic and is active in philanthropic endeavors and partnerships with international universities. Originally from northern England, Dr. Vince earned his undergraduate degree in medical sciences and chemistry at DeMontford University in Leicester, England, and began his research career at the University of Liverpool, where he earned his PhD in biomedical engineering.
