About: Team

Mark D. Myslinski
President and CEO

Mr. Myslinski brings nearly thirty years of life sciences and diagnostics industry experience to RedPath, including key sales and operating roles in both Fortune 100 and venture-backed start-up organizations. Mr. Myslinski has been a Johnson & Johnson executive since 2002 where his responsibilities have included building a new, world-wide Evidence Based Medicine function for the Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics unit. For five years, Mr. Myslinski was also General Manager of Johnson & Johnson's Veridex, LLC, a division focused on molecular and cellular diagnostics that achieved rapid sales growth under Mr. Myslinski's tenure. Previously, Mr. Myslinski held executive roles in venture-backed start-ups, Interscope Technologies and Precision Therapeutics, both focused on the field of pathology with an emphasis on cancer. Mr. Myslinski also accumulated over twenty years of sales and marketing experience prior to these roles, including over eight years with Baxter/American Hospital Supply Corporation.

Sydney D. Finkelstein, MD
Chief Scientific Officer

As Chief Scientific Officer for RedPath, Dr. Finkelstein is applying clinical translational research of molecular genetic discoveries to standard surgical pathology practice a goal to which he has dedicated his entire career. He is a nationally recognized expert in both Gastrointestinal Pathology and Solid Tissue Molecular Pathology.

Dr. Finkelstein founded RedPath after having spent 20 years as a practicing academic surgical pathologist, holding appointments as associate and then full professor at the University of Pittsburgh and at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia. He currently serves as Adjunct Professor at Temple University.

In 1990, he began work on the development of Topographic Genotyping, his patented technology for enhancing polymerase chain reaction amplifiability of minute, microdissected, fixative treated tissue samples. The patent was filed in 1995, granted for the United States in 2001, and licensed exclusively to RedPath.

David J. Haffner
COO and CFO

Mr. Haffner has more than 25 years experience, primarily as CFO in venture backed companies.

Mr. Haffner joined RedPath in March 2008.  Immediately prior to RedPath he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Renal Solutions, Inc. from 2004 through the successful sale of the Company in late 2007.  Prior to joining Renal Solutions, he served as CFO of NOMOS Corporation, a venture backed medical device manufacturer, until its merger with North American Scientific, Inc., a public company.   

Mr. Haffner also served as CFO and later President and CEO of Document Services, Inc., a venture backed document destruction company, that was sold to Iron Mountain in 2000.  Before joining Document Services, Mr. Haffner served as Vice President of Finance of a commercial printing company which he joined after over 12 years with Price Waterhouse, where he progressed to senior manager in the audit and business advisory practice. Mr. Haffner is a CPA and received a BS degree in Accounting and Management Information Systems from The Pennsylvania State University.

Dennis M. Smith, Jr., M.D.
Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Smith possesses over 25 years of experience in healthcare management, the outreach laboratory business, pathology, laboratory medicine, and blood banking. He is a board-certified clinical and anatomic pathologist and transfusion medicine specialist.

Dr. Smith’s professional career includes serving on the executive management team and Board of Directors of AmeriPath, Inc. While at AmeriPath, Dr. Smith’s positions included Chief Medical Officer, Executive Vice-President of Genomic Strategies, and Executive Director of AmeriPath’s Center for Advanced Diagnostics. Dr. Smith has previously held board seats at Immucor, Inc., the American Association of Blood Banks where he served as President, and the National Blood Foundation where he served as Chairman. In the 1980’s, Dr Smith was Executive Head and Director of Blood Services for the American Red Cross in Nashville, assistant professor of pathology at Vanderbilt, and Director of Laboratories and Chairman of the Department of Pathology at Memorial Hospital, Jacksonville, Florida, where he co-founded Memorial Laboratories, a successful outreach reference laboratory.

Currently, Dr. Smith provides consulting and management services to the healthcare industry and to venture capital firms. He sits on the Committee of Visitors for Vanderbilt University’s School of Engineering, on the Board of Directors of Jacksonville Country Day School, and on the Board of RedPath Integrated Pathology, Inc., a revenue-stage molecular diagnostics company.

Dr. Smith attended Vanderbilt University on a Southeastern Conference football scholarship and graduated summa cum laude from the School of Engineering. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Tennessee, performed his residency at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, and completed his blood banking fellowship at Vanderbilt.

Ernest C. Jacobs, MD
Vice President, Technical Operations

Dr. Jacobs has 24 years of professional experience developing computer-based medical systems in a variety of clinical and research settings. Dr. Jacobs also served on national standards committees for laboratory data interchange, and was responsible for implementation of FDA and ISO Quality Systems and compliance with US and foreign medical device regulations.

Prior to joining RedPath, he was Senior Staff Fellow in the Division of Computer Research and Technology at the National Institutes of Health and Associate Staff in the Section of Neurological Computing at the Cleveland Clinic.