Steven Q. Simpson, MD

Professor of Medicine, University of Kansas, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine
Chief Medical Officer, Sepsis Alliance

Dr. Steven Q. Simpson is Professor of Medicine at the University of Kansas in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, where he previously served as Division Director, Director of three ICUs, Chair of the Sepsis Team, and Chair of Multidisciplinary Critical Care. He has done research in all areas of severe sepsis from molecular and cellular mechanisms, to translational studies, to quality improvement studies. He was a founder, in 2005, of the Midwest Critical Care Collaborative, a multidisciplinary and interprofessional collaborative effort to improve the quality of critical care services throughout the Midwest. In 2007, he initiated the Kansas Sepsis Project, a statewide program to improve severe sepsis care and outcomes throughout the state via continuing education both in sepsis and in quality improvement principles, and via inter-professional collaboration. He is currently heading a BCBS-sponsored sepsis collaborative among Kansas City metro area hospitals and is a contributing faculty member of the ongoing Surviving Sepsis Campaign collaboratives, leading the effort in the Midwest. He is a participant in the 2016 review and update of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines.

Michelle McMurry-Heath, MD, PHD

President and CEO, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO)

Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath became BIO’s new President and CEO on June 1st. A medical doctor and molecular immunologist by training, she becomes just the third leader of BIO since the organization’s founding in 1993. She is a clinician-scientist with an MD/PHD in molecular immunology from Duke. Her leadership spans the executive branch, the U.S. Senate, the nonprofit sector and the biopharmaceutical industry. Driven by her own family experiences navigating clinical trials and funding uncertainties within the rare disease community, McMurry-Heath calls “the distribution of scientific progress the social justice issue of our age.” As an FDA official during the Obama administration, she was a champion of clinical trial evolution, the use of real-world evidence, and bringing the patient voice into  
agency decision-making. In government, she catalyzed collaborations between patients and life sciences leaders – creating new entities like the Medical Device Innovation Consortium and the National Evaluation System for Health Technology.  She is someone who understands the biotech sector’s unique start-up culture, having played a key role in J&J’s commitment to business incubation and helping to lead JLABS in the nation’s capital.