Charles Berul, MD, is the Chief Executive Officer of PeriCor LLC. He is division chief of Cardiology and co-director of the Children’s National Heart Institute. He earned his bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in biology from Bucknell University and received his M.D. from University of Maryland. Dr. Berul completed residency in pediatrics at Yale, followed by fellowship training in pediatric cardiology and electrophysiology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He was the director of the Pacemaker and Defibrillator Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School until moving to Children’s National in 2009. Dr. Berul is a tenured professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Berul has worked to develop minimally-invasive approaches to the heart for over 2 decades, with more than 200 publications and is an invited speaker nationally and internationally in the area of pediatric cardiac electrophysiology.
Axel Krieger, PhD is a co-founder and adviser for PeriCor, LLC. Before joining the University of Maryland in 2017, Professor Axel Krieger has been Assistant Research Professor and program lead for Smart Tools at the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National, leading a group of scientists and engineers in the research and development of robotic tools and laparoscopic devices. Projects at Children’s included the development of a surgical robot called smart tissue autonomous robot (STAR) and the use of 3D printing for surgical planning and patient specific implants. Professor Krieger holds several licensed patents for biomedical devices. He has several years of experience in private industry at Sentinelle Medical Inc and Hologic Inc. His role within these organizations was Product Leader developing devices and software systems from concept to FDA approval and market introduction. Axel completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany and his doctorate at Johns Hopkins, where he pioneered an MRI guided prostate biopsy robot used in over 50 patient procedures at three hospitals.
Justin Opfermann, MS, is the Chief Technology Officer of PeriCor LLC. He is a Research Engineer at the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Innovation in Children’s National Health System. He earned his Bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, and Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan. Justin was a member of Medtronic’s Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management Team in Mounds View, MN. His research was focused on the development of cardiac leads and novel pacing schema. In 2013, Justin joined the Sheikh Zayed Institute to develop minimally invasive tools for general, robotic, and cardiac procedures. Justin is an awarded finalist in both national and international device competitions, and has 8 patent applications. In 2017, his work in autonomous robotics was licensed to Ominboros.
Bradley Clark, MD is the Chief Medical Officer of PeriCor LLC. He is an attending pediatric cardiologist and electrophysiologist at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in Bronx, NY. Dr. Clark received his bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Emory University and his M.D. from New Jersey Medical School. He completed pediatric residency training, pediatric cardiology fellowship and advanced fellowship in pediatric electrophysiology at Children’s National Medical Center. Dr. Clark has experience in the implantation of devices in the pericardial space and surgical optics in minimally invasive procedures. He has a research background in pediatric electrophysiology, specifically related to minimally-invasive techniques of pacemaker and defibrillator insertion.
PeriCor, LLC 