Karen Yamamoto is a Principal Scientist in the Pharma Services division of NeoGenomics. Karen completed her doctorate in Molecular Biology at the University of Southern California studying the coordinative control of gene transcription in the protein kinase C pathway. She conducted her post-doctoral research at the Salk Institute researching mammalian transcriptional control in the protein kinase A pathway. Karen initially was a scientist at a diagnostic company using molecular tools and techniques to develop immunoassay kits, and a series of scientist/director level positions at a number of biotech companies developing animal models, identifying and characterizing clinically relevant biomarkers and taking them through early phase clinical trials. She joined Clarient’s Medical Device division (ChromaVision) as a Director of Assay Development, developing and validating the IHC assays to support the FDA cleared automated imaging scanner/imaging software (ACIS) to support pathologist quantitative analyses and later was the V.P. of R&D and Operations upon the acquisition by Zeiss. During that tenure Karen was responsible for hardware, software and assay R&D, manufacturing, quality and service. Karen has since returned to NeoGenomics (Clarient) has been a Scientific Liaison with Pharma Services supporting IHC, CISH and brightfield image analysis since 2011. Her current role is as the Director of the Scientific Affairs team.