Introducing CentoLSD™

Prof. Ari Zimran, MD

External: Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Israel

Prof. Ari Zimran was the Founder and the Director of the Gaucher Unit at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel from 1990 to 2018, and is currently a senior physician at the Unit. This is the world’s largest referral centre for Gaucher disease (GD), where more than 850 patients have been followed, and about 350 patients are treated with enzyme replacement therapy. Prof. Zimran has published more than 320 professional papers and reviews and has edited three books; he has been a leader in clinical trials for new treatments for GD, including Cerezyme™, Zavesca™, VPRIV™, Elelyso™ and Cerdelga™.

Prof. Arndt Rolfs, MD

Prof. Rolfs, founder of CENTOGENE, serves as CEO. He received his approbation (German official license to practice as a doctor) for human medicine from the Universities of Mainz and Vienna in 1985 and was granted a tenure track professorship for clinical neurology in 1997. He has been the Head of the Neurobiological Research Laboratory and Vice-Director of the Neurological Clinic and Outpatient Department at the University of Rostock. Arndt was Director of the Albrecht-Kossel-Institute for Neuroregeneration at the University of Rostock.

Omid Paknia, PhD

Dr. Paknia is the Director of Medical Reporting & Bioinformatics. He received his PhD in Biology from Ulm University. He later worked on population genetics projects at Hannover University.

Florian Vogel, PhD

Dr. Vogel serves as the Senior Vice President Clinical Lab Operations at CENTOGENE. He studied Biology at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and received his doctoral degree in Molecular Biology with summa cum laude. Prior to joining CENTOGENE, Florian implemented a genetic quality control division in a biotech company for vaccine vector production.

Indrani Manjunath, MS

Ms. Manjunath is the Supervisor of the Classification Team. She finished her master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenburg in 2018.

Prof. Mia Horowitz, PhD

External: Tel Aviv University, Israel

Prof. Horowitz graduated from the Weizmann Institute. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, Massachusetts, USA, she joined the Weizmann Institute. In 1985 she initiated studies aiming at understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying Gaucher disease. In 1990 she moved to Tel Aviv University where she continues her studies on the association between Gaucher disease and Parkinson disease and misfolding in lysosomal diseases, using Drosophila as an animal model.

Prof. Peter Bauer, MD

Prof. Bauer serves as CGO. After studying Medicine in Freiburg and Berlin, Peter worked as a resident in Neurology in Rostock and as a resident in Human Genetics in Tübingen. He received his board certification in Human Genetics in 2006 and served as Head of the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory at the Institute of Medical Genetics and Applied Genomics at the University Hospital Tübingen.

Aida Bertoli-Avella, MD, PhD

Dr. Bertoli-Avella is the Head of Research Data Analysis. She graduated cum laude from the Institute of Medical Sciences, Santiago de Cuba. She then continued her training as a clinical geneticist at the National Center of Medical Genetics, Havana, Cuba. In 1997, she was awarded a UNESCO fellowship and started her PhD project at the Department of Clinical Genetics, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 2006, she became Principal Investigator of the Cardio-Genetics Group in the Department of Clinical Genetics.

Allison Faber, PhD

Dr. Faber is the Deputy Head of Digital Products. Following completion of a PhD in Physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2014, her post-doctoral research at the Max Delbruck Center focused on the effects of genetic variation in dilated cardiomyopathy patients.