Management Team
The NECBB team is composed of clinical, technical and customer service professionals with an array of backgrounds. Taken together, their experience has made us a leader in cord blood banking. Our management team embodies our expertise and capabilities.
Dr. Robert Newton, M.D., F.A.C.S.
Medical Director
A pioneer in reproductive therapy, Dr. Robert Newton has helped countless individuals and couples achieve their dreams of parenthood in his 50 years of medical practice. As one of the first specialists in Andrology, the study of male fertility, Dr. Newton founded the Newton Andrology and Cryogenic Center and the New England Sperm Bank (now the New England Cryogenic Center) in 1982. His mission was to improve research in Andrology and to provide sperm banking and sperm donation services to couples confronted with infertility. He remains the company’s Medical Director, supervising selection of sperm donors and consulting with patients seeking sperm donation and sperm banking services.
As a noted urologist, Dr. Newton was chief resident at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, practiced at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, served as chief of the Urology division at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, and developed the Andrology Division in 1993 at Lahey Clinic. Dr. Newton was a founding member of the Society for the Study of Male Reproduction as well as several other medical societies, including the American Society of Andrology, the American Urologic Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Fertility Society, the Boston Surgical Society, New England Microsurgical Society, American Association of Tissue Banks, and the European Society of Human Reproduction Embryology.
Dr. Newton received a B.A. in English from Amherst College and an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College. He has taught and lectured at Harvard and Tufts Medical Schools, and is the author of many articles published in the world’s leading medical journals.
Dr. Todd R. Flower, Ph.D.
Laboratory Director
Dr. Flower, Laboratory Director fo NECBB and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Bentley College in the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences graduated from College Mesericordia in Dallas, PA with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Chemistry. He joined New England Cord Blood Bank in 2000 as a laboratory technician processing cord blood. In 2001 he left NECBB to attend graduate school at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport Louisiana in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
While in Louisiana, Dr. Flower performed extensive research on the mechanisms of protein folding and Parkinson’s Disease, of which he has published 4 peer-reviewed scientific papers, one of which was the number 1 most accessed paper in the Journal of Molecular Biology and he has filed a patent on one of his experiments relating to Parkinson’s Disease. Dr. Flower graduated from LSUHSC in 2006 where he was awarded the Dean’s Award for his exceptional work in the field of Parkinson’s Disease. Dr. Flower rejoined NECBB in January of 2007 as Assistant Lab Director and was promoted to Director in September of 2007..
Dr. David Avicenna Matzilevich, M.D., Ph. D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Matzilevich received his M.D. from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London, UK. His studies focused on the molecular mechanisms and characterization of anti-oxidant enzymes in nematodes as a means of immune-evasion from hosts responses. Following his studies in London, Dr. Matzilevich received a fellowship in the Department of Pathology at Tufts medical School in Boston, MA. His work here involved analysis of virulence factors in the pathogenesis of Chagas Disease. Dr. Matzilevich went on to the University of Texas Medical Center at Houston in the Department of Neuroscience and the Keck Center for Neurology and Neurosurgery. His work involved the molecular mechanisms of traumatic brain injury and resulting cognitive impairment and defect in long term memory formation. Additionally working on the use of adult stem cells for the treatment of Neurological disorders.
Upon completion of these studies, Dr. Matzilevich became a faculty member at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School. His work here involved identification of molecular endophenotypes and susceptibility genes involved in the pathogenesis of Schizophrenia and Dipolar Disorder. Dr. Matzilevich is involved in several clinical trials using adult stem cells for treating neurological disorders
Grace M. Centola, Ph.D., H.C.L.D. (AAB)
Co-Laboratory Director
Dr. Grace Centola has served as Co-Laboratory Director at NECC since 2001. With a rich background in reproductive medicine, Dr. Centola was on the faculty of the University of Rochester for more than 15 years, where she started the first Andrology Laboratory and Sperm Bank in Rochester in 1987. Dr. Centola has also served as director of the ART Laboratory at the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Bryn Mawr Hospital; Director of the Andrology and Endocrinology Laboratory for the Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York and New Jersey; and Assistant Laboratory Director at Offices for Fertility and Reproductive Medicine in New York City and Maze Laboratories in New York.
Dr. Centola received a B.S. in Biology from Utica College of Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in Anatomy from Georgetown University. She has served on the faculty at the Michener Institute for Applied Sciences, University of Rochester Medical Center, SUNY Health Sciences Center, Uniformed Services University, and the University of Maryland. She is the author of numerous articles in leading medical and scientific journals.
