CytoAstra, headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a fast-growing biomedical company exploring new ground breaking concepts in the early diagnosis and treatment of cancers, infections, and other diseases using the platform. Our team is comprised of leading physicians, biomedical engineers, biologists, and other industry experts. We are driven through our scientific discoveries in biophotonics and biomarkers aiding in the diagnosis and management of life threatening diseases.
Chairman of the Board
Dr. James Y. Suen is a Founder of CytoAstra and a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at UAMS.
Dr. Suen received his medical degree from UAMS in 1966. He completed residencies in general surgery and Otolaryngology at San Francisco General Hospital and UAMS. A Captain in the United States Air Force, he completed a fellowship in Otolaryngic Pathology at the Armed Forces’ Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., and was an advanced senior fellow in head and neck surgery at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He is certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology.
Dr. Suen is a fellow in the American Academy of Otolaryngologists and the American Head and Neck Society of which he is past president. Dr. Suen has been awarded the Red Sash Award for Teaching on multiple occasions. In 1990, he was the recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award given by the UAMS College of Medicine. In 1991, he was honored with the Distinguished Citizen Award awarded by KARK-TV and the Governor’s Office of Volunteerism. In 1995, he was selected for the Distinguished Alumnus Award by M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He served as one of President William Clinton’s personal physicians during his administration. He was one of the co-founders of the Arkansas Cancer Research Center and was the Executive Director from 2002 to 2007. In 2006 he was selected by the UAMS College of Medicine to deliver the Annual Distinguished Faculty Lectureship, and in 2019, he was selected by the MD Anderson Cancer Center to deliver a Distinguished Lectureship.
His primary surgical interests include head and neck cancer, congenital vascular lesions of the head and neck, and diseases of the larynx. He is the author and editor of eight medical textbooks, including Cancer of the Head and Neck, which is used worldwide by medical schools. In 1995, he was selected by Good Housekeeping as one of the top 400 cancer specialists in the United States and, since that time, he has been listed in all editions as one of the Best Doctors in America.
Chief Executive Officer
With his passion to assist others in the fight against cancer, Jamie welcomed the opportunity to join and develop the many potential applications of the technology for the early diagnosis and therapeutics of life-threatening diseases. He takes this fight personally, like many of you, as he lost his younger sister to cancer several years ago.
He has worked in the Oncology space for a number of years ensuring the delivery of the most current treatment options for patients and their providers. This included placement on clinical trials, companion diagnostic testing, and other, potentially life-saving therapies. In these roles, he continued to successfully develop partnerships at large academic medical centers and community based oncology groups around the country expanding access to testing and other services.
Previous to his Oncology roles, he acted in the capacity of General Manager for both public and private pathology laboratories. He specialized in building large esoteric testing menus with some of the most advanced laboratory testing at the time. In these roles, Jamie was able to provide novel and leading diagnostic tests advancing superior testing paradigms in the Women’s Health and Urologic Health disciplines.
He received both his BA in History and MBA from Saint Louis University, graduating with honors. Jamie also holds a Certificate of Finance from Southern Methodist University.
Professor, Founder
Professor Zharov is a Founder of CytoAstra, the Director of the Arkansas Nanomedicine Center at the Winthrop Paul Rockefeller Cancer Institute (WPRCI) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), and Josephine McGill Chair in Cancer Research. He graduated from the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU) (optoelectronics) and Moscow State University (physics) and obtained Ph.D. and D.Sc. at BMSTU. He completed a postdoctoral Fellowship at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the University of California (1984-1985), MBA courses, and served as the Chairman of Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department at BMSTU (1988-2000).
He obtained unique interdisciplinary experience in laser spectroscopy, BME, biophysics, nanomedicine, and multiple clinical trials (22 years at WPRCI/UAMS since 2000) resulted in 250 publications (17 papers in Science and Nature family journals), 60 patents, 4 books, and 8 book chapters.
He pioneered in vivo photoacoustic flow cytometry, super-resolution photothermal microscopy, super-resolution photoacoustic and photothermal spectroscopy, pulse photothermolysis of cancer cells and infections targeted by gold nanoparticle clusters, first biological application of smallest (22 nm) spaser, photoacoustic tweezers, and ultrasound focusing of blood and lymph flow in vivo.
He was the Principle Investigator of 22 grants supported by NIH (5 R01s), NSF, DoD and international programs from Samsung, Inc., and EU (Eureka). He was co-leader of a nano- toxicity program between the FDA-affiliated National Center for Toxicological Research and Arkansas Research Alliance. Dr. Zharov is the State Prize Winner, the highest national scientific award in Russia (laser monitoring of atmosphere pollution) and one of the first recipients of the U.S. Maiman Award (for laser-ultrasonic scalpel), named after the inventor of the first laser. As a President of “Yaninvest”, he organized commercializing the hybrid electro-laser, magneto-laser, and LED-vacuum therapy for treatment post-mastectomy lymphedema and chronic prostatitis.
He is among the top 2% of most influential world researchers listed by Stanford University based on an analysis of Scopus (2022)
Senior Scientific director
Katya has a PhD in Clinical and Experimental Medicine and a DSc in Biomedical Engineering. She has been an integral part to the success of CytoAstra, leading and managing the Photo Acoustic Flow Cytometry’s successful analytical validation in vitro and its preclinical feasibility in vivo, and participating in numerous clinical trials.
Along with serving as Principal Investigator, Co-PI, Co-Investigator, she has received over 20 state and federal grants, in addition to her over 80 publications in some of the leading medical journals. Katya has been listed among the top 2% of most influential world researchers referenced by Stanford University.
director of Engineering
Biomedical Engineer
Clement is an engineer with CytoAstra where his research and development is focused on next-generation medical grade PAFC device. He obtained his PhD focusing on enhancement and optimization of Photoacoustic Flow Cytometry (PAFC) technique for clinical applications: designing, modeling and prototyping, laboratory test and characterization, and clinical validation.
Biomedical Engineer
Yulian received a PhD in biomedical engineering. He has worked with various aspects of medical equipment focusing on tomography, ophthalmology, ultrasound and lasers which has contributed to his expertise in the field of Photo Acoustic Flow Cytometry.
Research Associate
Safi works full-time as a Research Associate at CytoAstra, contributing to cutting-edge research in biomedical signal processing and photoacoustic flow cytometry data analysis for disease diagnostics. He obtained his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Business Administrator
Shelli Madison specializes in grants administration and organizational management. She has an MBA and brings more than 20 years of financial experience to the team including overseeing operations, procurement, and human resources.