Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Chief Technology Advisor, CellMax Life
Biography
John J Sninsky, Ph.D. is Chief Technology Advisor for CellMax Life. John has a deep understanding of the underlying biology of colon cancer progression that provides mechanistic insights of biomarkers for blood-based screening. He has an extensive knowledge of the development and application of pioneering molecular procedures and bioinformatics for the translation of research-grade biomarker assays into clinical-grade broadly adopted diagnostic tests as well as diagnostic tests paired with pharmacotherapies.John is the author of more than 125 scientific papers. He was a member of teams that developed the Polymerase Chain Reaction, sequenced the Human Genome and developed clinical-grade DNA and RNA liquid biopsies. John spent 30 years in senior management at companies that ranged from small to enterprise CLIA-CAP laboratories and in vitro diagnostic companies that commercialize FDA clearedapproved IVD kits. These companies included Cetus, Roche Molecular Systems, Celera Diagnostics, Quest Diagnostics, Molecular Stethoscope and CareDx.
Talk
Technology Imperatives for Preventive Colorectal Cancer Screening
Profound advances in our understanding of the natural history of cancer have occurred over the last decade. Removal of advanced adenomas makes the greatest contribution to reduction in CRC morbidity, mortality and cost. The complexity of the adenoma-carcinoma continuum requires an accurate blood-based multimodal technology CRC screening test.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2026 Silicon Valley
Track Chair:
Victor Velculescu, Johns Hopkins University
PMWC Award Ceremony
• Klaus Pantel, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf / ELBS
• Daniel De Carvalho, University of Toronto
Keynote: Early Detection of Cancer by Multimodal Liquid Biopsy Analysis
• Klaus Pantel, UKE / ELBS
From Mutation to Methylation: The Next Wave of Liquid Biopsy Biomarkers
• Chair: Victor Velculescu, Johns Hopkins University
• Daniel De Carvalho, University of Toronto
• Manel Esteller, Sant Pau Research Institute
• Gordon Sanghera, Oxford Nanopore Technologies
Advancing Minimal Residual Disease Detection Through cfDNA & cfRNA Profiling
• Chair: Luis Diaz, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• Anne-Renee Hartman, Adela
• Klaus Pantel, UKE / ELBS
AI-Informed Biomarker Trials: Turning Early Signals into Actionable Designs
• Chair: Manish Kohli, University of Utah
• Luis Diaz, MSKCC
• Eric Klein, GRAIL
• Peter Bach, DELFI Diagnostics
• Samuel Levy, ClearNote Health
Role of AI in Liquid Biopsies & Cancer Detection
• Chair: Amoolya Singh, DELFI Diagnostics
• Matthew Baker, Dxcover
• Pankaj Vats, NVIDIA
Fragmentomics for Early Detection
• Varsha Rao, Claret Bioscience
Integrating Genetic Risk with Early Detection
• Giordano Botta, Allelica
Metagenomic Diagnostics & Global Pathogen Surveillance
• Charles Chiu, UCSF
AI-Driven Host–Pathogen Signatures from Plasma cfDNA
• Sivan Bercovici, Karius
Ultra-Sensitive Multimodal Liquid Biopsy for Early Cancer Detection
• Atul Sharan, CellMax Life
AI-Enhanced Proteomic Signatures for Early Cancer Detection
• Diana Abdueva, Aqtual
