The tranSMART Foundation Adds VP of Engineering

WAKEFIELD, MA--(Marketwired - Feb 1, 2016) - The tranSMART Foundation, a non-profit organization providing a global, open-source knowledge management platform for scientists to share pre-competitive translational research data, today announced the addition of John O'Hara as the VP of Engineering. In this role, Mr. O'Hara will be responsible for managing the tranSMART platform roadmap. He will oversee all software development projects while also meeting with Foundation members and platform users to explore future capabilities and technologies.

"We have experienced rapid growth of the Foundation and the use of the tranSMART platform over the couple of years and this has resulted in the need to expand our team," said tranSMART Foundation CEO Keith Elliston, PhD. "We are thrilled to have John join our team to oversee the development of the platform. He will be instrumental ensuring we clearly understand the needs of the user community and guiding the developers to continue to enhance the platform to provide users with a solution that helps them further their translational research initiatives."

O'Hara is a serial entrepreneur, and company founder who helped build a number of New England communications industry successes in New Oak Communications, inventor of the remote access VPN concept (acquired by Nortel Networks), WaveSmith Networks, an edge switching company (acquired by Ciena), Colubris Networks, a leading Wifi provider (acquired by HP), and most recently Cedar Point Communications, high density VoIP for Docsis (acquired by Genband). As an engineering executive and later CEO, O'Hara has also made his mark on the New England startup ecosystem. He has put his stamp on the product lines of several companies, including Laser Light Engines, a pioneer in laser illumination systems. Prior to his start up experience John has held research and management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Wang Laboratories. John in the author of patents relating to both communications protocols and laser systems and of a number of IETF RFC's and draft standards.

About The tranSMART Foundation
The tranSMART Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides an open-source, cloud-based, data-sharing and analysis platform that enables scientists at universities, disease foundations, pharmaceutical companies, and government agencies around the world to share pre-competitive data in a way that saves money and time in translating research findings into new therapies and diagnostic tools. Founded to steward the tranSMART platform, the Foundation is headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts with Centers of Excellence in Ann Arbor, Mich.; London, England; Boston, Mass.; and Amsterdam, Netherlands. The tranSMART Foundation can also be found on the web at www.tranSMARTFoundation.org.