• Richard Rava, PhD, has joined Artemis Health (Menlo Park, California) in the newly created position of senior vice president of research and development. Rava brings more than 20 years of research, development and operational expertise in molecular and genetic analysis for commercial assays and instrumentation. He comes to Artemis after 16 years at Affymetrix, where he was a scientific co-founder and most recently senior vice president of research and development. Artemis Health is a privately-held company dedicated to the development of non-invasive prenatal diagnostic tests.

• Larry Fulton has been named VP of sales-Americas for Crospon (Galway, Ireland) at the company's newly established U.S. operation in Carlsbad, California. Heading up Crospon's sales operation for the Americas, Fulton brings with him more than 17 years of experience in minimally invasive surgery. Most recently, he worked with start-up company Endogastric Solutions, where he served as director of sales, U.S., Mexico and Canada, overseeing the introduction of two new medical device product lines. Crospon develops minimally invasive medical devices for monitoring, diagnosis and therapy in the gastroenterology area.

• John Alexander (Alex) Martin has been named president/CEO of World Heart (Salt Lake City), a developer of cardiac assist technologies. Martin, who also replaced Jal Jassawalla on the company's board of directors, joins WorldHeart from Edwards Lifesciences, where he has been president of the North American Region and corporate VP since 2004.