Top 50 Industry Voices in Biotech Twittersphere -- 2012

November 26, 2012 | By Ryan McBride

Tools

Sally Church (@maverickny)--Biopharma consultant Organization: Icarus Consultants Followers: 8K-plus Profile: Sally Church is one of the authors of the Pharma Strategy Blog, where, along with her Twitter feed, she provides some sharp analysis of biotech assets, particularly in oncology. When conversations get going on, say, the latest data from a cancer drug study, Church seems to come to the table with lots of smart things to say.
Dr. Joseph Kim (@drjosephkim)--Physician and executive Organization: MCM Education Followers: 30K-plus Profile: Kim is a digital tech and publishing entrepreneur. His Twitter musings cover healthcare technology, healthcare systems and other related topics.
Leonid Kruglyak (@leonidkruglyak)--Princeton professor Organization: Princeton University Followers: 3K-plus Profile: Kruglyak gives his Twitter followers a close-up view of his lab at Princeton (quite literally, as he recently shared a photo of a MiSeq sequencer from Illumina ($ILMN)). His lab investigates molecular and evolutionary influences on changes in DNA, and his group uses cutting-edge sequencing and computational analyses to get the job done.
Dr. Tom Frieden (@drfriedencdc)--Major disease sleuth Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Followers: 13K Profile: Frieden leads arguably one of the most important U.S. agencies to public health. The self-described disease detective tweets about the work of the CDC in combating infectious diseases and other health threats. Because the CDC influences U.S. health policy, pharma pros pay attention to the agency.
Linda Avey (@lindaavey)--Life sciences entrepreneur Organization: 23andMe (co-founder, not active in management) Followers: 4K-plus Profile: Avey left her active role at 23andMe in 2009, but it's tough not to associate her with the personal genomics company that she co-founded with Anne Wojcicki. Avey, as you might guess, tweets about genomics and other science-related topics.
Bradley Voytek (@bradleyvoytek)--Neuroscience postdoc Organization: University of California, San Francisco Followers: 4K-plus Profile: Voytek has written extensively on the role of neuronal oscillation in human cognition, very heady stuff. He's now working on his postdoc at UCSF and collaborating on other neuroscience-related projects.
Dr. Vinny Arora (@futuredocs)--Internal medicine doc, blogger Organization: University of Chicago Followers: 11K-plus Profile: If you were beefing up on your knowledge of the hospital physician market (or doing research for a hospital TV drama), you might stop by Arora's Future Docs blog or check out her Twitter account. She manages medical residents and is assistant dean of scholarship and discovery at the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago.
Tara Smith (@aetiology)--Microbiologist, academic, blogger Organization: Aetiology (blog) Followers: 4K-plus Profile: Smith's profile says that she's an associate professor, microbiologist/infectious disease epidemiologist and occasional blogger. A self-described nerd, she writes about evolution and diseases. Science junkies, your cup runneth over.
Richard Pops (@popsalks)--Biotech CEO Organization: Alkermes Followers: 1.5K-plus Profile: You won't find many chief executives of biotech companies with market caps north of $2 billion, and you'll see few among this elite group on Twitter, but Rich Pops has shown that he is far more open to embracing social media than some of his peers. He doesn't tweet often, but he does comment on industry news, and it's intriguing to me to see what stories top CEOs find interesting.
Mark Changizi (@markchangizi)--Evolutionary neurobiologist, author Organization: 2AI Labs Followers: 3K-plus Profile: Changizi explores the mysteries of human cognition and has written a ton to inform the research community and public about his findings, including the answers to why humans see in color and organize their thoughts in certain ways, according to his bio. His Twitter feed is a regular source of his latest observations.