Biomarkers Consortium:
Our Team

Wesley Horton is a Senior Scientific Project Manager for Neuroscience at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Wesley manages the Biomarker Consortium Neuroscience Steering Committee (BC NSC), Accelerating Medicines Partnership Schizophrenia (AMP SCZ), and various working groups operating under the BC NSC. Working across diverse stakeholders and building alliances, Wesley has successfully developed and launched multiple public-private partnerships in neuroscience enabling new solutions for drug development in Alzheimer’s disease and rare neurodegenerative disorders. Prior to joining the FNIH team, Wesley worked for Georgetown University for four years as a Clinical Trial Manager for interventional Alzheimer’s disease studies and developed clinical research programs in Stroke, Neurosurgery, and Interventional Radiology. He also spent time working with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation managing multi-center clinical trials to understand HIV and HIV Associated Neurocognitive Disorder. Mr. Horton received his Master’s in Clinical and Translational Research from Georgetown University with a focus on mechanistic and biomedical research and his Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology from the University of Mary Washington.

Althea Lang is a Scientific Project Manager for Cancer Research Partnerships at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Lang manages the Biomarkers Consortium Cancer Steering Committee (CSC) and supports projects in development within the CSC.

Prior to joining FNIH, Dr. Lang was Chief of Staff for Materials Science Research at DuPont and Assistant Director of Education Programs at the American Institute of Physics. Dr. Lang earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Chemistry developing inhibitors of HIV-1, and served as a Technology Transfer Fellow at the Penn Center for Innovation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Swarthmore College.

In her role, Melissa oversees the projects under the Metabolic Disorders Biomarkers Consortium (MDSC) portfolio including biomarker qualification efforts in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), bone quality, heart failure, preeclampsia, and emerging programs in obesity, pulmonary hypertension, maternal health and digital health technologies. She has significant experience managing diverse Life Sciences initiatives supporting a wide range of stakeholders across industry, government, academia and private sector. Prior to joining the FNIH, she was Program Manager for the Laboratories Canada Initiative at Merrick & Company, where she facilitated the functional programming and design efforts for biocontainment laboratories in the greater Ottawa Ontario area. During her diverse career she has managed biomedical research programs, clinical trials and studies, and biosurveillance programs. She holds an MS in Biology from East Carolina University, and a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Kansas Medical Center. She completed her post-doctoral training at the University of Ottawa, Ontario in Cellular and Molecular Medicine.