Predictive Medicine was formed in 1996, growing out of Dr. Luciano's research focusing on the selection of appropriate treatment for individuals suffering from depression. She and Bennett Greenstein are the company's principals. In addition, a number of other prominent depression researchers, computer modeling scientists, and other experts have played important consulting and advisory roles in the company's development.

Current collaborators include Maurizio Fava, MD, and Andrew Nierenberg, MD. They are, respectively, Director of the Depression Clinical and Research Program, and Associate Director of the Depression Program at Partners HealthCare System (the corporation overseeing the affiliation of McLean Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the North Shore Medical Center) and are both members of the psychiatry faculty at Harvard Medical School.

 

JOANNE S. LUCIANO, Ph.D., Chief Science Officer

Dr. Luciano's work provides an objective method that clinicians can use to help determine the best treatment for an individual patient. In addition, she has developed technology that describes the recovery patients would expect to experience in response to a specific treatment. This allows physicians and patients the ability to better monitor their recovery and to determine early in the treatment process how well or poorly the treatment is working.

She has demonstrated the usefulness of these methods in her dissertation, "Neural Network Modeling for Unipolar Depression: Patterns of Recovery and Prediction of Outcome," in which she analyzed data from 99 patients who participated in three clinical studies.

Dr. Luciano is a pioneer in the field of predictive medicine. She holds a joint appointment at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on the application of computational and mathematical modeling methods to integrate and understand the underlying dynamics of disease, treatment and recovery.

She has developed technology that provides systematic and objective assistance in treatment selection for individual patients suffering from depression. The methods have been designed to be easily adapted to other illnesses in which treatment choice is unclear. In addition, Dr. Luciano has developed methods for studying the recovery process, providing a better understanding of how treatments work.

Dr. Luciano holds a BS and MS in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Cognitive and Neural Systems. She has been actively involved in the high-tech computing industry since 1976. Her background in technology includes a diverse array of application areas such as compiler optimization, graphical workstation design, natural language processing, neural network applications, real-time process control, software product development and bioinformatics.

BENNETT L. GREENSTEIN, MSW, Chief Design and Development Officer

Mr. Greenstein leads several efforts at Predictive Medicine, including business development, software product design, and integration of clinical concerns with computer technologies.

He currently holds a half-time position as a Principal Product Designer in the Internet Applications Division of Lotus Development Corporation, a division of IBM. His responsibilities include the design of the user interface for voice integration, for smart upgrades, and for Java and ActiveX support for Lotus's suite of business applications. At Lotus since 1991, he has held the following full-time positions: Business Development Manager for 1-2-3 Team Computing, Principal Software Engineer in Team Computing and in Workgroup Research.

Mr. Greenstein's chief accomplishments at Lotus include:

Mr. Greenstein is President and Chief Idea and Design Officer of Greenstein Systems, a software design and development firm he founded in 1987. It offers a range of consulting services, and specializes in software and services in the financial, investment, and mental health areas. He had staff positions and a private practice as a psychotherapist from 1983 to 1990; during that time he also developed and led a range of workshops and courses, many of which focused on issues of ethnic identity.

Mr. Greenstein has an MSW in clinical psychiatric social work, and has done additional graduate work in computer science and cognitive science. His principal current intellectual interests are in the areas of decision-making, systematic irrationality in human reasoning, behavioral finance, and evolutionary psychology. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts with his wife Elaine, a licensed psychologist, and his two daughters, Rebecca and Ilana. His main personal interests are his family, reading, music, writing, investing, poker, and tennis.

PHILIP KALINA, MA, Senior Advisor

Mr. Kalina is an experienced software developer and manager. He was Manager of Research and Development for Amherst Associates (highly regarded for its hospital decision support systems) and at HBO and Company after they acquired Amherst. Later, Mr. Kalina was Senior Manager of microcomputer based healthcare systems for Ernst & Young's nationwide healthcare consulting practice. He also was researcher and technical consultant to a business that used sophisticated computer models to manage an investment fund. At present he is Technical Director for an R&D company near Washington, DC that develops Internet-based training systems and educational web sites.

Mr. Kalina earned an AB in mathematics at Lehman College of the City University of NY and an MA in mathematics and statistics at the University of Massachusetts. He has done additional graduate work in computer science focusing on reinforcement learning and on theory and applications of artificial neural networks.