EvoNexus Executive Advisor
Dr. Gene Dantsker is the former President and Chief Operating Officer and current Executive Advisor of EvoNexus. He has been involved with EvoNexus since its founding as selection committee member, mentor to numerous portfolio companies, Executive-in-Residence and most recently Chief MedTech Officer. Gene is a seasoned entrepreneur, board member, advisor, operational executive and angel investor.
Prior to the EvoNexus role, Gene worked across the spectrum of technology solutions in semiconductor, IT, medical and biotech businesses. His career path brought together engineering, science, business and entrepreneurship.
Following graduate school, Gene was Senior Technical Staff Member at TRW, Inc., Space and Electronics Division (now part of Northrop Grumman) where he was responsible for design, fabrication, and integration of microelectronics for space/satellite applications. Subsequently he co-founded Nanostream, Inc., a biotechnology company and provider of high-throughput bio-analytical instruments to companies involved in drug discovery and development. As VP of Technology, Dr. Dantsker was co-inventor and developer of Nanostream’s core technologies based on polymer MEMS microfluidics and converted them into commercial products purchased by leading pharmaceutical companies. Gene then served as CEO and CTO of aDNAvance Technologies, Inc., a provider of ultra-sensitive medical molecular diagnostic products, operating out of the US and Canada. Gene also served on the Board of Directors of D-Wave Systems, a pioneer in Quantum Computing, with leading Silicon Valley VCs, as well as heavily consulted the company in business development, IP strategy, growth strategy and operational infrastructure. Gene subsequently headed business development for the US branch of Nitto Denko, a leading supplier of diversified polymer-film products for medical, electronic and optronic applications, based in Osaka, Japan.
Gene then joined Qualcomm Life as Sr. Director of Business Development & Licensing, where his responsibilities included enabling intelligent integrated care models through the Internet of Things (IoT) in the pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics and payer industries. In 2020, he helped sell the original Qualcomm Life business, to Philips before moving on. Following the sale, Gene joined Amazon Web Services as Global Lead for Medical Devices.
Gene holds B.S. degrees in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Maryland, M.A. and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MBA from San Diego State University, where he was class valedictorian. He is an inventor on over 60 issued patents.