James A. Joyce

Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO Inventor

James “Jim” Joyce has more than two decades of public company CEO and Corporate Board leadership experience. He is also an inventor or co-inventor of ~20 pending or issued patents, including those underlying ImmunePrep™, ChemoPrep™, ChemoPure™ and Sigyn Therapy™.

Prior to establishing Sigyn Therapeutics, Mr. Joyce was the founder and former Chairman and CEO of Aethlon Medical, a therapeutic technology company that he navigated from single shareholder start-up to Nasdaq-traded Company with 8000+ shareholders. During his tenure at Aethlon, Mr. Joyce oversaw the development of the Hemopurifier®, a first-in-class blood purification technology to address life-threatening viruses and cancer-promoting exosomes. Under his leadership, the Hemopurifier® became the first therapeutic candidate to be awarded two FDA “Breakthrough Device” designations and was the first and only device to receive “Emergency Use Authorization” (EAU) approval from the FDA, Health Canada, and the Government of Germany to treat Ebola virus. Time Magazine named the Hemopurifier® one of the “11 Most Remarkable Advances in Healthcare” and designated the device to its “Top 25 Best Inventions” award list.

Under Mr. Joyce’s leadership, Aethlon Medical was awarded multiple U.S. government contracts, including a contract with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and two contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) entity.  While at Aethlon, Mr. Joyce also led the completion of five human clinical studies, the closing of approximately $100 million of equity financings, and the establishment of preclinical and clinical collaborations with more than twenty government and non-government research institutes.

Based on the use of the Hemopurifier® to treat HIV and Hepatitis-C infected individuals in India, Mr. Joyce was the recipient of the “Spirit of India Award” sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and awarded each year by the American India Foundation to the American business leader who has demonstrated a commitment to accelerate social and economic change in India.

Mr. Joyce testified before Congress and lobbied Capitol Hill to promote the use of medical devices as candidate treatment countermeasures against emerging bioterror and pandemic threats, which contributed to expanding the countermeasure definition to be inclusive of medical devices under U.S. law.  Previously, a treatment countermeasure was defined solely as a drug or vaccine. Subsequently, medical device therapies were among the first to receive Emergency-Use Authorization from FDA during the Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks.

Mr. Joyce was also the founder and former Executive Chairman of Exosome Sciences, Inc. (ESI), a company that focused on the discovery of exosomal biomarkers.  Inspired by the death of a former teammate, Mr. Joyce established a collaboration with the Boston University CTE Center to test his hypothesis that circulating exosomes transporting tau protein cargos (exosomal tau or TauSome) might provide a basis for a non-invasive blood test to diagnose or monitor neurological tauopathies, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and Alzheimer’s disease.  As a result, ESI was invited to participate in the first NIH funded clinical study of CTE, which revealed exosomal tau levels to be approximately 9x higher in 78 former NFL players as compared to same age group control subjects. The study results (co-authored by Mr. Joyce) were published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.  In a follow-on study, Exosome Sciences reported exosomal tau levels to be similarly elevated in diagnosed Alzheimer's patients.  Researchers at Johns Hopkins would subsequently report exosomal tau to be the basis for a blood test that could diagnose Alzheimer's disease up to four years before first symptoms.

Prior to founding Aethlon Medical and Exosome Sciences, Mr. Joyce operated James Joyce & Associates. He was the founder and former CEO of Mission Labs, Inc. and a principal at London Zurich Securities. Upon graduating from the University of Maryland, Mr. Joyce was first employed as a member of the Denver Broncos Football Club of the National Football League.

Craig P. Roberts

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer

Mr. Roberts is an inventor of life-saving therapeutic technologies, which includes a Percutaneous Adult Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) system that was licensed and subsequently sold to C.R. Bard. Mr. Roberts is also an inventor of the IMPACT System, which received CE Mark clearance in the European Union and was subsequently registered in 32 countries and deployed to treat cytokine storm associated conditions, including sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), acute liver failure, severe pneumonia, and H5N1 bird flu virus infection. The IMPACT system was comprised of multiple cartridges and designed to reduce the presence of inflammatory cytokines from human blood plasma. As a Clinical Perfusionist, Craig has conducted more than 4,000 extracorporeal procedures, including adult and pediatric cardiopulmonary bypass, cardiac assist devices, ECMO (artificial lung), vascular access catheter systems, and continuous renal replacement therapy.

Richa Nand

Board Member

Richa Nand is a senior legal executive with more than 20 years of experience as an intellectual property (“IP”) attorney and strategic business advisor for biotechnology and medical device companies. She is the founder of Insight Patents, a legal and consulting firm providing IP and transactional corporate services for the life sciences industry. Ms. Nand previously served as Vice President of Corporate Development and Legal at Bird Rock Bio – a Johnson & Johnson-backed biopharmaceutical company in San Diego – and Vice President of Intellectual Property and Licensing; Director of Business Development; and In-House Patent Counsel at Cytori Therapeutics. Prior to law school, she was a biomedical researcher at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, California. Ms. Nand received a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Juris Doctor degree from Boston University School of Law.

Jim Dorst

Board Member

Jim Dorst has more than 30 years of senior management experience in finance, operations, planning and business transactions at both private and public companies. He was most recently Director of Corporate Development at SYNNEX/Concentrix, where he was primarily responsible for mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Dorst was previously Chief Operating Officer (“COO”) and Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”) at SpectraScience, Inc.; CFO of Aethlon Medical, Inc. and Vice President of Finance and Operations for Verdisoft Corporation. In addition, he previously served as Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration at SeeCommerce; CFO and COO of Omnis Technology Corp; and CFO and Senior Vice President of Information Technology at Savoir Technology Group, Inc. Mr. Dorst practiced as a Certified Public Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP); and holds a Master of Science degree in Accounting and a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of Oregon.

Chris Wetzel

Board Member

Christopher Wetzel has more than 25 years of leadership experience in various aspects of the healthcare delivery system and since 2004, has served as Chief Executive Officer for the Surgery Center at Hamilton in New Jersey. His career has focused on building organizations, increasing operational efficiency, increasing profitability, maximizing revenue, and managing change in the complex and high-growth healthcare environment. Mr. Wetzel applied his broad background in strategy, finance, and operations to guide various entities starting new ventures, entering new markets, and reengineering business processes. He is a long-term investor in the extracorporeal therapy space. Mr. Wetzel received a Master of Business Administration degree in Healthcare Management and a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Thomas Jefferson University (formerly Philadelphia University).