Dr. Barbara Zehentner is an executive leader with over 25 years of molecular diagnostics, clinical laboratory, biotech, and biopharma experience. Her career has been driven by implementing cutting-edge technologies to improve the quality of patient care through advancements in diagnostics and therapeutic discovery. Dr. Zehentner earned her master’s and engineering degree in Biotechnology from the University of Applied Sciences (FH) in Weihenstephan, Germany, and her PhD in Molecular Biology from the University RWTH in Aachen, Germany. She has been certified as a high-complexity clinical laboratory director (HCLD) through the American Board of Bioanalysis in Molecular Diagnostics since 2008. In 2020, she received her MBA through a Western Governors University program for working professionals.

Dr. Zehentner previously worked for Boehringer Mannheim (Germany), Hoffmann-La Roche (Switzerland), and Roche Diagnostics (Germany), as well as for Corixa Corporation and GlaxoSmithKline (Seattle, WA). During her 17-year leadership tenure at HematoLogics (Seattle, WA) serving as laboratory director as well as managing partner for the organization, she established and grew clinical laboratory operations offering comprehensive molecular analysis, FISH, and cytogenetic testing services to complement flow cytometric analysis for diagnosing and monitoring hematopoietic malignancies. To continue her executive leadership journey, Dr. Zehentner joined Adaptive Biotechnologies (Seattle, WA) in 2021 as Vice President of Molecular Laboratory Operations to oversee and scale a multi-level production team and high-throughput processing facilities for next-generation sequencing (NGS).