Leadership
When you work with Ampersand Biosciences, we’ll get to know you and your work—so we can deliver solutions that fit your needs. In the meantime, you can learn a little about us.
Tori Race, Ph.D.
Quality Assurance Manager, Senior Scientist
Dr. Race plays a dual role at Ampersand Bioscience, where she is both Quality Assurance Manager and Senior Scientist. As Senior Scientist, Tori leads the group developing recombinant proteins and antibodies. While here she has secured two Phase I SBIR grants with a collaborator at the Trudeau Institute to develop immunological reagents for studying infection in the ferret and hamster, both of which are underrepresented model organisms.
Before starting Ampersand Biosciences, Tori worked as a Senior Scientist for Myriad RBM. Earlier in her career, she was a research assistant for the Molecular Biology Core Facility at Trudeau Institute. She holds a B.S. in Animal Science from the University of Maine and a Ph.D. in Functional Genomics from North Carolina State University.
Laurie Stephen, Ph.D.
President, Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Stephen started Ampersand Biosciences in 2015 to serve the unmet need of multiplex assay development and validated Luminex® kits. Ampersand is the second company she has started: In 2005, she launched Multiplex Biosciences to offer custom multiplex services. That company was acquired by Rules Based Medicine (Myriad RBM), where she worked for several years overseeing the development of new biomarker assays and multiplex kits. Before Multiplex Biosciences, Laurie worked at Upstate Biotechnology, where her group released the first commercial Luminex®Cytokine kit. She has been the PI on several grants and authored numerous papers on multiplex assay development and validation. Laurie received her Ph.D. from the University of Guelph and her B.S. and M.S. from McGill University. Her post-doc was at the University of Toronto where she studied the effects of fatty acids on cell signaling.
Ashley Fletcher
Sample Testing Manager
Ashley is responsible for sample tracking, testing, and data analysis. Ashley has over 10 years of GLP and GCP laboratory experience with both manufacturing and sample testing of multiplex immunoassay kits. Before working at Ampersand Biosciences, Ashley was part of the manufacturing group at Myriad RBM. Ashley grew up in Saranac Lake, N.Y., and graduated from the State University of New York at Potsdam with a B.S. in Biochemistry.
Kristi Marshall
Director of Lab Operations
Kristi started Ampersand Biosciences in 2015 to serve the unmet need of multiplex assay development and validated Luminex® kits. Here, she leads the manufacturing group for multiplex kits and also oversees sample testing. Before Ampersand, Kristi worked at Multiplex Biosciences, which offered custom multiplex services. After Multiplex was purchased by Rules Based Medicine (Myriad RBM), she oversaw the manufacturing of multiplex kits and LDTs. Prior to that, she worked at Upstate Biotechnology, where she led the manufacturing group for Luminex® kits.
Marc Damour
Director of Research & Development
Marc leads the assay development group at Ampersand Biosciences, which he started in 2015 to serve the unmet need of multiplex assay development and validated Luminex® kits. Before that, he worked at Multiplex Biosciences, a company offering custom multiplex services. After Multiplex was acquired by Rules Based Medicine (Myriad RBM), he oversaw the development of new analytes for multiplex kits. Marc also worked at Upstate Biotechnology, where he developed some of the first kinase and cell signaling assays for Luminex®. Marc received his B.S. from Siena College.