Provia Laboratories Adds Dr. Jim Vaught, Ph.D., Former Chief of BBRB, to Advisory Board

Grace Century's project, Provia Laboratories, which specializes in high quality stem cell biobanking (the collection, transport, processing, and cryogenic storage of biological specimens) has invited former Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research Branch (BBRB) chief, Dr. Jim Vaught, Ph.D. to join its growing Advisory Board.

Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates (UAE) (PRWEB) July 23, 2014

International research and private equity firm Grace Century recently announced that its biobanking project, Provia Laboratories, has added Dr. Jim Vaught, Ph.D. to its growing Advisory Board. Scott Wolf, CEO of Grace Century said, “We are very pleased to have Dr. Vaught onboard with Provia's ever-expanding Advisory Board. His expertise along with the scientific depth and expertise that Provia's management team brings to this field, should help Provia Labs imprint the highest standards in the stem cell bio banking industry.”

Dr. Vaught has worked in the field of biorepository and biospecimen science for over 20 years. As one of the founding members of ISBER – the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories - in 1999, he served as its second president, and 15 years later he is again president-elect. In 2005, Dr. Vaught began working with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research (OBBR), part of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He worked specifically on the development of the NCI's Best Practices for Biospecimen Resources. From 2005 to 2013 Dr. Vaught served as the NIH's representative to the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections, created by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Additionally, he also served as a member of the NIH Intramural Scientific Director's Biorepository Committee.

In addition to ISBER, Dr. Vaught is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. From 2006 to 2012 he was Senior Editor for Biorepository and Biospecimen Science for the AACR journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. Since 2012 he has been Editor-in-Chief of Biopreservation and Biobanking, the official journal of ISBER. Dr. Vaught is currently an advisory board member for Biobanques (France) and The Telethon Network of Genetic Biobanks (Italy). Most Recently, until October 2013, Dr. Vaught served as Chief, Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research Branch (BBRB), Cancer Diagnosis Program, Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, NCI, NIH.

“We are delighted to add to our team someone with such deep expertise and who has committed 20 years of their life to advancing the critical field of biobanking,” said Howard Greenman, CEO of Provia Labs. “The methods involved in ensuring precision in this field are complicated, but are instrumental to the advancement of therapies – both as mechanisms to provide high quality biomaterial to the research community, but also to ensure patient's samples collected at one point in time can be used in the future - safely and effectively.”

Dr. Vaught's addition to the Provia Advisory Board is part of an aggressive plan to grow Provia's emerging Commercial Biobanking Division which currently offers Biobanking Management Consulting services, biobanking products such as the Proviasette™ – an optimized storage container for storing solid tissue samples at ultra-cold temperatures, and includes a growing business around repository management services. Provia recently moved its corporate headquarters to a large facility in Littleton, MA where it is expanding its repository to support this growth. Dr. Vaught will also assist Provia in its core business unit – its Consumer Biobanking Division which includes Store-A-Tooth™, a consumer service for the private banking of valuable, non-controversial adult stem cells found in children's teeth for future clinical use. Dr. Vaught's expertise will assist Provia in expanding processing and storage capacity for Store-A-Tooth customer samples.“With a management team and advisory board like Provia's, there's no telling how big this company and its industry, as a whole, will be in the not-so-distant-future,” Scott Wolf added, “The Grace Century team and I are very excited about this project and our relationship with everyone at Provia Labs.”

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About Provia Laboratories
Provia Laboratories, LLC is a health services company specializing in high quality biobanking (the collection, transport, processing, and cryogenic storage of biological specimens). Its dental stem cell banking service, Store-A-Tooth™, gives parents the option to store stem cells today to protect their children's health tomorrow. For more information about Store-A-Tooth™ visit http://www.store-a-tooth.com or http://www.facebook.com/storeatooth.

About Grace Century, FZ LLC
Grace Century is an International research and private equity consultancy located in Ras Al Khaimah (north of Dubai) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Grace Century specializes in “game-changing” life science and health related private equity projects. For more information visit: http://gracecentury.com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/07/prweb12042527.htm