Chandru J PhD

Clinical Genomics Specialist - Cancer Genomics

• Leading ecosystem shaping initiative, (precision health genomics) in Apollo and Aster Hospitals.
• Assisted KOL Medical oncologists as SME in interpreting genomic testing reports.
• Established regional molecular tumor board through Oncologists association in Bangalore for leveraging precision oncology practice among HCPs.
• Counseled ~170 patients (pre-test) on importance of doing comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) in cancer treatment journey.
• Conceptualized and organized scientific engagements in emphasizing role of CGP in matching targeted treatments.

Customer Support Lead - IN Affiliate

• Leading operations and customer support for Foundation Medicine Portfolio in Liaison with APAC.
• Managing distributor relationship and training on policies and SOPs.
• Supporting IN FMI business functions (Finance, operations, and access).
• Providing technical support to HCPs, PJPs and distributors

• Orchestrated collaboration with bioinformatics, AI/ML, and software development team in building automated framework and resource tools for curating genetic data, variant ranking, and web applications.
• Established accreditation compliant facility for Rare disease clinical genomics project.
• Strategically aligned stakeholder objectives and project outcomes
• Developed and operationalized SOPs, training plans, policies, analytical validation, and clinical validity documents for NGS analysis operations. Developed templates for test requisition form (TRF), and genomic clinical reporting
• Led team-building efforts by conducting technical interviews and recruitment for clinical variant analysts.
• Effectively aligned project outcomes by setting realistic goals to meet Rare Disease Genetics project deliverables and milestones.
• Responsible for database building, designing analysis framework, and training team on curating gene-disease panels , and NGS variant analysis.
• Effectively implemented training plan on exome variant analysis and interpretation as per ACMG guidelines.
• Reviewed gene-disease curation for 760 rare genetic disorders and its diagnostic utility using exome sequencing assay.

• Assisted technical solutions to clinicians, scientific affairs, clinical geneticists and genetic counselors on NGS and other diagnostic assays.
• Led and trained team of 6 genome analysts, in genetic test recommendations, re-analysis of NGS data, curation, gene-panel design and clinical reporting activities.
• Demonstrated concordance in CAP competency assessment and proficiency testing activities in germline variant analysis and interpretation.
• Effectively managed operational gaps for faster clinical reporting processes.
• Liaised with customer support and technical teams (bioinformatics, oncology, germline, microarray, cytogenetics/FISH, IHC, MLPA and NIPT teams for technical queries) to ensure prompt client support.
• Provided technical support to sales, and marketing team in fulfilling client requirement.
• Compliance with QA, SOPs and regulatory guidelines for technical support division.

• Delivered exceptional performance in meeting turn around time for reports with given resource and time by meticulous planning and execution.
• Enthusiastically led team of 8 analysts and improved efficiency, quality and policy compliant clinical reporting.
• Accomplished qualitative clinical reporting for ~4000 patients NGS data from perspective of affected, carrier screening, mitochondrial and trios.
• Demonstrated senior analyst competency and proficiency in CAP educational and diagnostic challenge activities.
• Supervised disease panel segments (cardiology, endocrine, ENT, metabolic disorders, nephrology, neurology, ocular genetics and mitochondrial genome analysis) in compliance to ACMG interpretation.
• Maintained low attrition rate by meticulously handling MIS for making data-driven decisions
• Subject matter expert: provided technical input and requirements for developing and testing mitochondrial variant analysis and reporting software.
• Periodically updated SOPs, Policy documents of NGS reporting.
• Effectively liaised three departments (Genome analysts, bioinformatics and software development team) that led to improved technical and operational workflows in NGS clinical reporting.
• Effectively discussed genetic test results to clinicians upon technical query.

• Demonstrated decision-making ability in exome variant reporting, compliant to SOPs and policies.
• Demonstrated competence in ACMG based variant interpretation for ~200 patient data.
• Handled complex genetic cases and effectively interpreted variants using multitude of open source databases and genome browsers.