Alejandro Abarca

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Alejandro Abarca is a co-Founder and acting CTO at Delee Corp. He is a Physicist, a Y Combinator, a Singularity University, and a Royal Academy of Engineering LIF alumnus. Abarca is a co-creator of the CytoCatch™ isolation platform and imaging system, which isolates and analyzes circulating tumor cells from blood samples. He has published 4 scientific papers in indexed international journals. He has over ten years of experience developing and producing medical devices and biosensors, including, a microfluidic device for the isolation of rare cell subpopulations based on dielectrophoretic separation, manufacturing methods for embedding metal electrodes onto thermoplastics for microfluidic applications, and an automated imaging system to study cell’s properties by immunostaining. Abarca also has collaborated in projects related to bioprinting and point-of-care applications with various research groups at Tecnológico de Monterrey. His areas of expertise include microfabrication, manufacturing techniques for mass production, optics, and cell separation based on physical properties.

Liza Velarde

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Liza Velarde is a co-founder and acting CEO of Delee Corp. She is a Y Combinator alumna and has a bachelor’s degree in International Business from Tecnológico de Monterrey. Velarde is responsible for the development and execution of the company's strategic plans, leading along with her co-founders, the engineering team that built Delee’s core technology. She has raised over $2.4 M USD through investments, government funds, and multiple awards, also securing pre-orders worth a potential value of over $2.5 M USD. Velarde has also established strong relations with top hospitals and research centers and her work has been highly regarded by international institutions, such as Cartier Women's Initiative Awards and WeXchange (an initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank). In recent years, she has been acknowledged as one of the 50 most relevant people transforming Mexico and one of Forbes’s 100 most influential women in Mexico, and has been invited as a speaker on various international panels about cancer and entrepreneurship, such as WeXchange 2019 and The Economist: War on Cancer LATAM 2019.

Juan Felipe Yee

Chief Medical Officer (CMO)

Juan Felipe Yee is a co-Founder and acting CMO at Delee Corp. He is a Y Combinator alumnus, and obtained a M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering both from Tecnológico de Monterrey. Yee is a co-creator of the CytoCatch™ isolation platform and imaging system, which isolates and analyzes circulating tumor cells from blood samples. He has published 7 scientific papers in indexed international journals and spent over a decade working and collaborating in the development of several medical devices and biosensors, including, a high intensity phototherapy LED source to treat hyperbilirubinemia in newborns, substrates made from carbon nanofiber mats coated with gold nanoparticles for the detection of specific molecules in simple solutions by SERS spectroscopy, and microfluidic devices for cell isolation based on antigen-antibody interactions, inertial forces, and dielectrophoresis.

Joost Leeflang

Director

Joost Leeflang has over 20 years of experience in successfully driving top and bottom line growth for consumer and professional business across multiple geographies. He served as Senior VP and Global Head of Commerce responsible for Global Sales and Marketing for the Medical Imaging Business of Philips Healthcare. Prior to that, Joost occupied several key positions in the Philips Organization, including Senior VP and CEO of Philips Electronics Central and Eastern Europe, Senior VP and General Manager of Philips Lightning in Europe, Senior VP, CEO and General Manager of Philips Electronics RUC in the Healthcare & Consumer Lifestyle area, amongst others. He was the COCIR President, the European Trade Association representing the medical imaging, health ICT, and electromedical industries. Joost completed an Executive Program in Strategy and Organization at the Stanford Business School and a Master in Business Economics at the University of Groningen.

David Mohler, M.D.

Medical Advisor

David Mohler is an Orthopedic Surgical Oncologist, Clinical Professor, and Chief of the Musculoskeletal Tumor Service Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine from Stanford University Medical Center. Mohler received his B.Sc. from Stanford University and his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College. He completed an internship in General Surgery at UCLA, a residency in orthopedic surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery, and a Metabolic Bone Disease/Bone Tumor fellowship at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. With over three decades of experience in the field, he has authored and co-authored over 35 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 5 book chapters, and collaborated in various research projects. Mohler is currently a member of several prestigious associations such as the Orthopedic Research Society, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, and the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society, among others. He has an American Board of Orthopedic Surgery certification and has been honored with awards like the Alpha Omega Alpha, The National Research Service Award and the Saul Halpern, M.D. Orthopedic Educator Award.

Chiu Chau

Engineering Advisor

Chau has over 20 years of experience working in the biotech industry. He is the co-founder and CTO of Opentrons, a company that commercializes open-source robots that automate dozens of key laboratory processes, also serving as its CEO for 4 years. Chau was also the VP Eng of BioArray Solutions, which was bought by Immucor in 2008, where he led the engineering team that built the core multiplex qPCR automation technology now used in most blood banks for advanced blood typing. He has been granted more than 15 US and international patents and holds a M.Sc. in Applied Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hong Kong.

Mario Álvarez, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor

Mario Moisés Álvarez is a Principal Investigator of the Alvarez-Trujillo Laboratory and the Director of the Biomedical Engineering Group at Tecnológico de Monterrey. Alvarez has been a Visiting Professor at the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology at BWH, Harvard Medical School, and a Visiting Professor at the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interest is focused on the integration of bio-, micro-, and nanotechnologies into tissue, biomedical, and biopharmaceutical engineering applications. His current academic production is mainly focused on bioprinting, biomaterial and tissue engineering, development of organ-on-chip systems, point of care diagnostics, and biopharmaceutical engineering. Professor Álvarez completed an industrial postdoctoral stay at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, USA. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from Rutgers University, a M.Sc. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from Rutgers University, a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Tecnológico de Monterrey, and a B.Sc. in Biochemical Engineering from Tecnológico de Monterrey. Alvarez has published over 100+ papers in international journals. He has been granted three US patents and twelve Mexican patents. Álvarez is a permanent member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and a member of the National Research System, where he has been awarded with the highest ranking for Mexican researchers (SNI Level III).

Grissel Trujillo, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor

Grissel Trujillo de Santiago is a Principal Investigator of the Alvarez-Trujillo Laboratory at the School of Engineering and Sciences at Tecnológico de Monterrey. She was trained as a Chemistry & Pharmacy Biologist at Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León; she obtained her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Biotechnology from Tecnológico de Monterrey. Dr. Trujillo de Santiago conducted research in Material Sciences at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II during her Ph.D. program. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Dr. Khademhosseini’s Lab in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Division for 2 years and at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories. She has published 45+ papers in indexed international journals and one book chapter, has been awarded with a Mexican patent, and has more than 40 participations in international conferences. She was a recipient of the For Women in Science Award from the L’Oreal-UNESCO-CONACyT-AMC foundation in 2019, and recognized as a “Distinguished citizen” by her native town in 2018. Her main area of interest and expertise is the design of biomaterials and biofabrication technologies for Tissue Engineering applications. Dr. Trujillo de Santiago research is currently focused in the development of novel platform-technologies based in chaos to produce multilayered complex 3D micro-structured living tissues.

Lauro Gómez, M.D., Ph.D.

M.D., Ph.D. - Medical Advisor

Lauro S. Gómez is a Urologist and Research Director of the Department of Urology at the University Hospital “Dr. José Eleuterio González”. He has over 30 years of experience in the oncological, pediatric and male infertility fields, has authored and co-authored over 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and is a reviewer of various specialized medical journals. He is President of the School of Urologists of Nuevo León, a permanent member of the Mexican Academy of Surgery and the Mexican Society of Urology, and a member of the National Research System. Lauro completed his M.D. and specialty in urology at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, and received his subspecialty in pediatric urology, andrology and microsurgery from the Puigvert e Institut Dexeus Foundation of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Necker Hospital of the Paris University.