Shaping the Future of Early Cancer Detection

As the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cizzle Bio, Inc., Bill Behnke has positioned the company at the forefront of the precision diagnostics movement, driving a mission to make early detection the global standard of care. Under his leadership, Cizzle Bio is advancing breakthrough biomarker-based blood tests for the early detection of high-burden cancers, including lung and gastric, developed in collaboration with leading oncology researchers worldwide.

Throughout his career, Bill has served as a visionary healthcare executive and entrepreneur, guiding organizations across biotechnology, diagnostics, and healthcare delivery through transformative growth. He brings more than two decades of leadership experience in strategic partnerships, clinical innovation, and patient engagement, consistently bridging the gap between cutting-edge science and real-world impact.

Before founding Cizzle Bio, Bill held several executive positions, including Chief Executive Officer of ProTom International, a company pioneering proton therapy technologies for cancer treatment, and Executive Vice President of Business Development for Cogent Healthcare. Across these ventures and his work with The Behnke Group, his consulting firm, he has built a track record of uniting clinical, commercial, and operational strategy to advance innovations that improve patient outcomes.

Bill’s commitment to early detection and patient advocacy is deeply personal. His daughter Ella’s lymphoma diagnosis inspired his tireless dedication to advancing life-saving diagnostics and ensuring that all patients can detect cancer early, when treatment is most effective.

Bill previously served as a longtime board member of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (now Blood Cancer United) and currently serves on the board of the ASCO Foundation’s Conquer Cancer® initiative. He continues to collaborate with clinical and advocacy organizations to expand awareness, accelerate research, and strengthen the connection between scientific innovation and patient outcomes. Recognized among the “Most Inspiring Business Leaders of 2025” by CXO Outlook, Bill remains a passionate advocate for transforming early detection from possibility to practice.

Dr. Ron Greeno is a veteran physician executive with 30 years of experience in the physician services management field. He was the founder of Cogent Healthcare and served as its EVP for Strategy and Chief Medical Officer until its merger with Sound Physicians. He has also served in physician executive positions at IPC and TeamHealth.

He was board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and critical care. He is the Senior Advisor for Government Relations and a former President of the Society of Hospital Medicine, which represents the nation’s 50,000 hospitalist physicians.

In this role, he works with Capitol Hill, Medicare, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). CMMI was created by the Affordable Care Act and tasked with designing, implementing, and testing new healthcare payment models to improve care and lower healthcare costs.

Much of Dr. Greeno’s work in federal healthcare policy has focused on innovative payment models in the nation’s healthcare system.

Steven T. Rosen, MD, FACP, FASCO, FAIME, is the Executive Vice President, Director Emeritus of Beckman Research Institute & City of Hope, Professor, Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, Schwartz Endowed Professorship in Duarte, California. Following his graduation with distinction from Northwestern University Medical School’s Six-Year Honors Program in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Rosen completed his residency in internal medicine at Northwestern and a fellowship in medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. He served as the Director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine from 1989-2014.

Dr. Rosen’s laboratory research focuses on experimental therapeutics and hematologic malignancies. He has received funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), American Cancer Society, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS), Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, Department of Defense and Rising Tide Foundation. Dr Rosen has received numerous grant awards and contracts and has published more than 500 scientific papers. He is editor-in-chief of *Cancer Treatment and Research*. Dr Rosen was the chair of the Medical Science Committee of the LLS and served on its Board. He also serves on the Board of American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Conquer Cancer Foundation. Dr. Rosen has been an advisor to more than two dozen NCI Comprehensive Cancer Centers.

He was the recipient of Northwestern University Medical School’s Alumni Achievement Award (1994), the Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award from Northwestern Memorial Hospital (1995), the Marv Samuel Award from the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities (1996), recognition from the Woman’s Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital for Compassionate Care (1996), and Israel Cancer Research Fund, Man of Distinction Award (2011), and Lifetime Achievement Award (2015).  Best Doctors in Chicago and Los Angeles.  American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE’s) College of Fellows (2017).  Association of American Physicians (AAP) (2019).  The Giants of Cancer Care award for 2021.  America’s Best Doctors – Top Hematologist & Oncologist – Findatopdoc.com.  The Excellence in Scientific Service Award -The Leukemia Lymphoma Society, Blood Cancer Community (2023).  Fellow, Royal College of Physicians (2023).  City of Hope Scientific Research Portrait Gallery of Honor (2024).

Ajay Goel, Ph.D., AGAF, is a Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Molecular Diagnostics at the Beckman Research Institute, as well as Associate Director of Basic Sciences at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center and also serves as Director of Biotech Innovations at the City of Hope, Duarte, CA.

Dr. Goel has spent over 25 years researching cancer and has been the lead author or contributor to over 450 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed international journals and several book chapters. His current H-index is 110, and an i10-index of 349, with more than 40,000 citations of his research work. He is also a primary inventor of over 75 international patents to develop various disease biomarkers or therapeutic targets for gastrointestinal cancers. He uses advanced genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic approaches to develop novel circulating, liquid biopsy-based biomarkers (e.g., cell-free nucleic acids, exosomes) for early detection, prognosis, and determining predictive responses to chemotherapy and targeted drugs in gastrointestinal cancers. In addition, his group is very interested in identifying novel therapeutic targets, particularly immune therapy, for various gastrointestinal cancers. His research also involves understanding the role of the gut microbiome, health disparities, and the prevention of gastrointestinal cancers using integrative and alternative approaches.

Dr. Goel is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA). Dr. Goel is also a fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGAF). He serves as the Associate Editor-in-Chief (Molecular Therapy Oncology), Executive Editor (Molecular Carcinogenesis), Senior Editor (Scientific Reports), Associate Editor (Digestive Diseases and Sciences), and as an editorial board member of more than 25 international journals, including Gastroenterology, Clinical Cancer Research, Carcinogenesis, Cancer Letters, PLoS ONE, Epigenomics, Future Medicine, Cancer Biomarkers and Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. He is also actively involved in peer-reviewing activities for more than 100 international scientific journals and various grant review panels of national and international funding organizations.

His research has been actively funded for more than 20 years by various private and federal organizations, including funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and many research foundations and other state organizations. He has won more than 50 national and international awards and honors and has been invited for visiting professorships by various national and international academic institutions and academic bodies.

Dr. William (Bill) S. Dalton is the Founder of M2Gen (now known as AsterInsights), a national biotechnology subsidiary of the Moffitt Cancer Center. He is the past President (2002–2012), CEO, and Center Director of Moffitt Cancer Center, an NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. Prior to joining Moffitt as Center Director in 2002, Dr. Dalton was the Dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

His research interests include the development of information systems to allow aggregation, organization, and sharing of patient data in real-time to enhance the discovery and delivery of evidence-based precision medicine. While at Moffitt, he participated in the development of the “Total Cancer Care Protocol,” a prospective study designed to follow patients throughout their lifetime, with patients consenting to donate their clinical data, tissue, and molecular data to support precision medicine.

In 2014, the Moffitt Cancer Center partnered with the James Cancer Center at Ohio State University to form ORIEN, a cancer center alliance of eighteen cancer centers dedicated to data sharing and collaborative research. The number of patients who have consented to the Total Cancer Care Protocol is now over 325,000.

Dr. Dalton’s basic and translational research interests focus on molecular mechanisms of drug resistance and drug discovery. He has authored over 200 publications, served on several editorial boards, and holds twelve patents in the fields of drug discovery and computer/information networking.

He has served on numerous not-for-profit boards and is the past Chair of the Personalized Medicine Coalition (personalizedmedicine.org) and past President of the Association of American Cancer Institutes (aaci-cancer.org). He is also the past Chair of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (aaas.org) and is the current Board Chair of the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition (ihmc.us). Additionally, he is the current Chair of the American Association of Cancer Research (aacr.org) Trust in Science Task Force.

Dr. King is a board-certified radiation oncologist at City of Hope, specializing in the treatment of complex cancers. He earned his medical degree from Rush Medical College in Chicago and completed residencies in internal medicine at the University of Illinois Hospital and in radiation oncology at Rush University Medical Center.

Dr. King’s research has focused on improving cancer treatment outcomes, with published work spanning head and neck cancers, gliomas, and neuropathic pain following spinal cord injury. His clinical and scientific expertise strengthens Cizzle Bio’s mission to advance minimally invasive, highly accurate cancer detection and patient care.

Mary Jimenez is a passionate, performance-driven executive leader with extensive experiences in biotech, diagnostic sales, and business development with fortune 500 companies and start-ups. She joined the initial sales team at Genentech, where she held various leadership roles.

Later, she joined Caris Life Sciences as VP of Strategic Account Management, where she worked with executive leadership from top NCI-designated cancer centers, hospital networks, and group practice organizations on comprehensive molecular profiling, standardization of workflows, and protocols.

She is currently consulting for several startups, including HealthGates, Cizzle Biotechnology, and Syantra. She has served on a national panel for Women Who Conquer Cancer at the American Society of Clinical Oncology and was recognized as one of San Antonio’s Top 25 Technology Leaders in 2022.

Mary is also past president of The Health Cell, UT Mays Cancer Center Advisory Board, San Antonio Medical Foundation’s Community Health & Education Committee, ThriveWell Board, and Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation. Past board positions include Genentech Women’s Professionals and Vice President of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.

Dr. Miglarese joined Cizzle Bio as a Senior Lab Advisor in August 2025. Dr. Miglarese is the founder and owner of Oncobellum LLC, an executive consulting firm specializing in research and development for precision oncology therapeutics and diagnostics. He recently served as SVP, Correlative Science at Caris Life Sciences responsible for data science, including development and validation of predictive and prognostic algorithms using advanced machine learning and AI platforms and industry-leading multidimensional clinical and molecular data sets. Previously, he held the position of SVP, Drug Discovery and SVP, Clinical Laboratories, responsible for the tissue and liquid biopsy Labs, Regulatory Affairs and Translational Sciences. Prior to that he held titles of SVP, Research, Development and Scientific Operations and he initially joined Caris as VP, R&D. Prior to joining Caris, Dr. Miglarese founded OncoNex Consulting LLC and served as an advisor and interim CSO for Cielo Therapeutics. Before that, he held various positions in the BioPharma and Diagnostic sectors including CSO at GeneCentric, VP of Oncology Translational and Clinical Science at OSI/Astellas, Head of Translational Research at Array BioPharma and Section Head in the Department of Cancer Research at Bayer. Dr. Miglarese received his BS in Biology from Virginia Tech and earned his PhD from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Virginia. He pursued his post-doctoral training at Pfizer Central Research and in the Department of Dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine.
Dr. Miglarese has over 30 years of scientific and operational leadership experience in oncology R&D, translational and clinical research, diagnostics, laboratory science, and precision medicine in oncology. He has played key roles in drug and diagnostic approvals and led the growth and operations of top tier clinical laboratories.

• NDAs: MEKTOVI (binimetinib), KOSELUGO (selumetinib), FOTIVDA (tivozanib), STIVARGA (regorafinib), TUKYSA (tucatinib)
• PMA: MI Cancer Seek (1st consolidated whole exome/whole transcriptome assay approved by FDA)
• Led extraordinary growth at Caris Life Sciences; expanded tissue lab and opened new R&D and liquid biopsy labs, achieved a 464% increase in tissue case volume in 5 years with industry-leading turnaround times

Yolanda Heiberger, M.A., is an experienced healthcare communications professional with expertise in developing and executing comprehensive communications strategies. She has extensive clinical, educational, and promotional writing expertise in a broad range of therapeutic areas for physician, scientific, patient, and donor audiences on behalf of diverse healthcare entities and biotechnology companies including Cardinal Health; the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Heersink School of Medicine; UAB Medicine; Children’s Tumor Foundation; HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology; CSI Laboratories; Surgical Affiliates; Southern Research; and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Skilled in storytelling and engaging with patient and clinical audiences, she is also adept in fostering collaborative relationships with physicians, scientists, and clinical thought leaders. Her work has earned national recognition, including a Gold-Level National Health Information Award from Web Health and an Honorable Mention in Print and Digital Publishing from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Institutional Advancement Awards for Excellence. Yolanda holds a B.A. in Journalism and an M.A. in Mass Communication/Public Relations, both from the University of Alabama.

Berkley Behnke is a communications and public relations professional with expertise in writing, campaign strategy, and digital media. She has experience developing and managing integrated communications initiatives that strengthen brand identity and engage a wide range of audiences. Skilled in content creation, strategic planning, and message development, Berkley brings creativity and attention to detail to every project. She earned her B.S. in Communication Studies from Texas Christian University, where she built a strong foundation in writing and communications.

Dr. Steve Henderson is a medical writer—primarily focusing on grant writing—and biomedical researcher for Cizzle Bio. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego and San Diego State University, where he taught as an adjunct professor.

He has worked on clinical trials for Alzheimer’s Disease, co-authored research and book chapters on neurological injury and treatment outcomes, edited journal articles and books, written and edited grants and clinical trial protocols, and written blogs on cancer clinical trials.

He enjoys creatively and collaboratively solving problems, simplifying complicated concepts, and supporting team efforts to reach challenging goals. He has used this skill set to serve on numerous boards and steering committees.

Outside of work, Dr. Henderson has played keyboards for a variety of bands as a creative outlet.

Jennifer Hinkel, MSc, is a market access and health economics expert with over 15 years of experience in HEOR, RWE, pricing, and commercialization, with a particular focus on oncology and diagnostics.

With a background spanning leadership roles at Genentech, Caris Life Sciences, and McGivney Global Advisors, Jennifer has successfully guided biopharma and medtech companies in navigating regulatory landscapes, payer engagement, and expansion to global markets.

Jennifer holds an MSc in International Health Policy from the London School of Economics and is currently pursuing a DPhil in Evidence-Based Health Care at the University of Oxford, focused on cancer outcomes.

A cancer survivor and patient advocate, she is passionate about bridging innovation, policy, and patient access to accelerate the impact of transformative healthcare solutions.

Derek Shriver is a dedicated and highly skilled CPA with a strong foundation in accounting and business advisory services. After earning both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Accounting from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), he became licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in 2009.