• Ade Lawal was named VP of strategy and business development for Aspyra (Calabasas, California). Lawal most recently was director of service for GE Healthcare. Aspyra makes clinical and diagnostic information solutions.

• Kenneth Hachikian has been elected chairman of the board of Cambridge Heart (Tewksbury, Massachusetts), replacing Robert Khederian, who resigned the position but will continue to serve as a director. The board also elected Jeffrey Wiggins as a new director. Wiggins is a former principal of Dresdner RCM Capital Management. In addition, Louis Blumberg has resigned from the board. Hachikian has served on the company's board since July 2004 and is a member of its audit committee and chairman of the nominating and compensation committees. Cambridge Heart makes products for the non-invasive diagnosis of cardiac disease, particularly the identification of those at risk of sudden cardiac arrest.

• James Whelan has joined ESA Biosciences (Chelmsford, Massachusetts) as VP of sales and marketing for ESA's clinical diagnostics business. Whelan joins ESA from LabCorp, where he was most vice president of managed care for its esoteric business. ESA Biosciences specializes in dedicated systems to screen children for lead poisoning.

• Molecular Biometrics (Chester, New Jersey) reported the addition of three senior commercial executives in sales, marketing and international distribution. Robert Lederer was named VP of sales and commercial development. Lederer previously was leader of the commercial team at Connetics. Bob Rochelle was named VP of marketing and business development, joining from Exact Sciences. Marianne Vivian was named director of international distribution. Most recently, she held a similar post at Irvine Scientific. Also joining Molecular Biometrics' research team are Mark Henson, PhD, and Kevin Judge, PhD. Henson will serve as a senior research scientist; he previously was a principal scientist at Pfizer's Global R&D facility. Judge joined Molecular Biometrics in November 2007. Molecular Biometrics is a metabolomics company that makes clinical tools to characterize biological function in health and disease.

• Strategic Diagnostics (Newark, Delaware) said that Matthew Knight, president/CEO, will be stepping down from his position to pursue other interests, and also will resign as a director. Knight will maintain a consulting relationship with the company to assist with the transition. Francis DiNuzzo, currently executive VP/COO, will assume the role of interim CEO. Strategic Diagnostics is a provider of biotechnology-based detection solutions for a broad range of food, water, agricultural, industrial, environmental, and life science applications.