Management Team

Mark Johnston, MBA

President

Mark Johnston brings over 16 years experience in the regenerative medicine and biotechnology fields. At Vesta he is responsible for all operating activities and strategic direction. Mark is also President of ADMET Technologies, a spin off of Vesta Therapeutics focused on developing cell and tissue based model systems for drug discovery purposes.

Some of the highlights of his tenure at Vesta and ADMET include: negotiating and securing a multi-million dollar supply and manufacturing agreement; sourcing and closing total financing greater than $10 million USD; setting up an approved cell therapy based clinical trial in India; building an EU-GMP approved manufacturing facility for cell production; negotiating multiple pharmaceutical validation collaborations and licensing deals, and establishing supply and distribution agreements with several multi-national firms active in drug discovery. Prior to joining Vesta and ADMET, Mark worked as an intern at the venture capital firm, Toucan Capital, and prior to this worked as a Vice President for 9 years at a French biotechnology company now owned by ThermoFisher Scientific. Mark received his MBA at the London Business School and a BS-Physical Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Joseph C. Ruiz, Ph.D.
Director, Research and Development

Dr. Ruiz received his Ph.D in Biology from the University of California at San Diego and completed his post-doctoral training at Columbia and Harvard Universities. He brings over 18 years experience in stem cell biology and histology to Vesta Therapeutics. Prior to joining the company in 2006, he was on the faculty at the Indiana University School of Medicine where he established a new University Core Facility dedicated to the isolation and developmental analysis of stem cells. Dr. Ruiz oversees the collaborative and in-house stem cell research programs as well as scale-up production of stem cell-derived hepatocytes for cell therapy and drug discovery applications. Dr. Ruiz has received SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) funding from the NIH and serves on grant review committees.

Khristine Turner
Eastern Territory Manager, OPO Relations

Khristine Turner has over five years of experience in the area of organ procurement. Prior to joining Vesta Therapeutics, she worked with Life Connection of Ohio located in Dayton, Ohio as a Procurement Transplant Coordinator. In addition to having experience in the field of organ donation and transplantation, Khristine has worked as a Hematology Lab Tech Assistant and a Pharmacy Technician. In 2000, Khristine completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. In addition to obtaining her degree, she was awarded a research grant in the area of endocrinology which gave her an opportunity to present her findings at the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research (NCUR.) She will complete her Masters of Business Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University in December of 2008.

Jason Benjamin
Western Territory Manager, OPO Relations

Jason Benjamin received his EMT-D certificate from Thurston County Medic 1 in 1993 and worked for both TCFD District 6 and American Medical Response. In 2001 he received a degree in surgical technology. Jason spent 2 years at St. Peters Hospital in Olympia Washington. For the next year he taught surgical technology at Clover Park College. He has spent the past 5 years working as both a Surgical Recovery Coordinator and Organ Recovery Coordinator in Washington state at the Life Center Northwest OPO and prior to this at the LifeGift OPO in Texas.