Patrick Heilman

Experience

Patrick Heilman is Laboratory Manager leading the biologics testing group at Element Ann Arbor. He joined Element through the acquisition of Avomeen, an Ann Arbor-based analytical laboratory where he served as Analytical Chemist III and then Senior Scientist before moving into laboratory management. In his current role, he oversees analytical method development and validation, SOP authoring, and the day-to-day operations of the biologics testing team.

Prior to joining the pharmaceutical testing industry, Patrick conducted postdoctoral research at the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, leading a multi-institutional clinical research project to identify novel biomarkers of Parkinson’s Disease and independently investigating the role of peripheral inflammation and tryptophan metabolism in the disease. His doctoral research at The Ohio State University examined the functional consequences of mutations in heat shock protein B1 (HSPB1) in peripheral neuropathies, where he also developed novel gene therapy vectors and helped build a biobank of ALS patient-derived fibroblast cultures.

Career Highlights

Patrick has authored or co-authored eight peer-reviewed publications, including work on tryptophan metabolites as biomarkers in Parkinson’s Disease and inflammation in post-partum depression, and has presented his research at national and international symposia. His background in translational neuroscience research – spanning clinical sample collection, gene therapy development, and biomarker discovery across multiple disease areas – brings a scientifically rigorous perspective to the analytical testing and method development/validation work his team performs at Element Ann Arbor.