
Vijayakumar Jayaraman
Lead Clinical Genomics Variant Scientist,
Nationwide Children's Hospital
I am a Lead Genomic Clinical Variant Scientist within the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute of Genomic Medicine (IGM) Clinical Laboratory at Nationwide Children's Hospital (NCH), I oversee the Genomic Clinical Analysis Team (GCAT), a team of highly qualified variant scientists/analysts who are responsible for the analysis and interpretation of high-complexity genomic testing on pediatric and adult patients with cancer or constitutional disease. These clinical tests inform patient management including diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic considerations for thousands of individuals from across the globe, as our laboratory functions in a reference laboratory capacity and also serves to support broad clinical trial testing needs. In my role, I provide oversight and direction of the GCAT team supporting these tests. I develop and implement workflows, and lead validation efforts supporting new test development and interpretation. This includes an oversight of quality and regulatory components, compliance with turnaround times, supervision of personnel performing highly complex genomic interpretations, review and interpretation of clinical data, and draft and return of clinical results. I am also extensively involved in teaching and mentoring rotating genetics/pediatric residents, laboratory genetics and genomics fellows and genetic counseling graduate students on clinical sequencing workflows and variant interpretation.