Dr. Deepak Kamnasaran is a well-accomplished Canadian Medical Geneticist, Oncologist, Medical Scientist, Technology Innovator and Founder of CEN4GEN Institute for Genomics and Molecular Diagnostics. In this interview he shares his journey into genomics and provides a close-up perspective of the company’s work and values, outlining an immense contribution in diagnostics and advanced genomics research.
Please share the inspiration for founding CEN4GEN?
Firstly, let me provide a brief bio-sketch of myself. I am Dr Deepak Kamnasaran and I am a well-accomplished Canadian Medical Geneticist, Oncologist and Technology Innovator who has earned more than 50 prestigious and scholastic awards, distinctions, prizes and scholarships for outstanding work from Canada, the U.S. and Europe; particularly for innovations and achievements within the field of genetics and applied multidisciplinary genetics. Some of these include: the Marquis Who’s Who Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, the Marquis Who’s Who Top Scientist award, the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec Investigator Award, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation Leaders Opportunity Fund Award, and Young Investigator Awards from the American Association of Indian Scientists in Cancer Research, the Canadian Brain Tumor Foundation, the Canadian Society of Neuro-oncology, the American Society of Neuro-oncology and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation (USA). Other examples of miscellaneous awards I have received with merit in the field of genetics are from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (Canada), the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (Canada), the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, the American Brain Tumor Association, the American Association of Cancer Research, the European Cancer Meeting, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (USA), and the Burroughs Wellcome Trust Fund, to name a few. I have made several hundred contributions to articles and reviews in reputable academic journals, book chapters, global lectureships and scientific meetings, editorial boards, mentorships, grant reviews and scientific competitions, among others.
In Canada, I was offered the opportunity to skip one complete grade as well as most of another grade in school, which would have given me the opportunity to start university at the age of 15. However, I declined this opportunity and instead at the age of 17 started the first semester of my undergraduate university degree program during the same time when the acclaimed movie: Jurassic Park was released at the theaters. It was quite an inspiring movie that demonstrated how important and powerful DNA is for the basis of life. In fact, the majority of medical science and life science disciplines currently integrate DNA science or genetics into their fundamental knowledge and therapeutic applications. Given Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park profound impact on me, I was inspired to become a Geneticist, and subsequently graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Genetics with distinction from the University of Alberta (Canada), then with a Doctorate Degree in Medical genetics with distinction (University of Alberta, Canada), and followed by a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Neuro-oncology at the Hospital for Sick Children, University Health Network and University of Toronto (Canada). I also received additional postgraduate certificates in Bioinformatics from the University of British Columbia (Canada), and Mechanisms of Neural Differentiation and Brain Tumors from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (USA). After my post doctoral training, I was recruited to the academic faculty of professors in the Department of Pediatrics at Laval University (Canada), and worked concurrently as a Medical Scientist for Quebec’s CHUQ (Canada) and as a Director of my high complexity laboratory which undertook leading-edge research in the disciplines of Stem Cell Biology, Oncology, Neuroscience, Pharmaceutical science and Medical genetics.
With more than 20 years of professional knowledge, skills and experience in the discipline of genetics and applied multidisciplinary genetics, I founded CEN4GEN Genome Services Corp. and CEN4GEN Institute for Genomics and Molecular Diagnostics in the year 2014. CEN4GEN offers several multidisciplinary genomic applications across sectors, and further provides patients and families new treatments as well as diagnostic, carrier and predisposition testing options for common, rare as well as serious diseases. Serving clients around the globe, CEN4GEN’s clients are from hospitals, universities, clinics, and commercial entities as well as private individuals. Furthermore, CEN4GEN is an award-winning corporation and is frequently nominated for prestigious accolades.
What services do you offer?
CEN4GEN has excelled in developing and launching several proprietary and certain unique testing options, which have relevance to genome medicine, precision medicine / personalized medicine, and medical genetic testing. These include personal whole genome analysis which unravels the blueprint of a genome; newborn screen which detects early and prevents disease onset in newborn infants; hereditary cancer screening and cancer precision medicine which detects early, prevents and identifies better treatment options for cancer; pharmacogenomic screen which chooses better and more cost effective medications faster; pre-disposition genetic testing which identifies risk factors in developing common late onset diseases; clinical metagenomics for rare infectious disease identification; preimplantation genetic testing which detects early high risk hereditary conditions in pre-conceptions; prenatal genetic testing which helps make decisions during the course of a pregnancy; liquid biopsy for certain diagnostic applications; as well as numerous genomics based combined molecular diagnostic testing and customized companion diagnostics including cardiovascular, cancer, metabolic, neurodegenerative, and neurological disorders.
Apart from these health related genetic testing services, CEN4GEN also offers non-health related human DNA testing options, including: DNA ancestry, DNA relationship testing (paternity, maternity, avuncular, twin, grand parentage, siblingship, Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA analysis), customized testing, as well as DNA forensic analysis.
In regards to animal DNA / genetic testing, CEN4GEN further provides several DNA testing options for horses, birds, felines and canines of all breeds, including disease diagnosis and risk assessment, hereditary trait identification, parentage determination, breed and genetic age determination, customized testing, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis, to name a few.
Moreover, CEN4GEN develops rapid testing medical devices that detect biomarkers and infectious pathogens which can immediately be used in the point-of-care of patients, household self-monitoring, law enforcement drug screenings and infectious disease screenings. These devices can also be used for veterinary and agricultural applications such as screening of animals and crops for specific biomarkers, chemicals and infectious pathogens. CEN4GEN has been lauded for their essentially portable, inexpensive medical devices which offer rapid onsite laboratory testing.
To support researchers, CEN4GEN provides a wide assortment of genomics as well as bioinformatics based research application services involving: biomedical and epidemiology genomics, agriculture genomics, veterinary genomics, wildlife and conservation genomics, environmental genomics, paleogenomics, archeogenomics, and genomics to unravel the genomes of unknown life forms (including potential extra terrestrial life forms).
CEN4GEN always welcomes collaborations and partnerships with individuals, teams, and entities (private and public sectors), including both new and experienced entrepreneurs. Moreover, any interested clients such as private individuals, clinicians, laboratories, entities (private and public sectors), scientists, animal owners, animal breeders, veterinarians, etc can contact CEN4GEN for our services at [email protected].
Is your testing accessible to anyone or are you required to work through a health practitioner?
In regards to the DNA / genetic testing services that CEN4GEN offers and are relevant for human subjects, we offer health related testing options as well as non-health related testing options. Our non-health related testing options include services such as DNA relationship testing. With this type of testing, we identify the unique DNA profiles of individuals being tested and then establish the likelihood of a genealogical (biological family) relationship between two individuals examined, or among several individuals being examined. Examples of this include: ancestry, paternity, maternity, avuncular, grand parentage, siblingship, Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA testing options. These non-health DNA testing services do not require our clients to have a healthcare practitioner to be involved in the testing process. Furthermore, the majority of these non-health related DNA testing options are meant to fulfill the curiosity of the client in discovering who they are within the context of ancestry or genealogical relationships.
CEN4GEN also offers numerous health related medical genetic testing options which are applicable to genetic disorders from almost all medical specialties. Examples include hereditary cancers, chromosome disorder syndromes, neurological disorders, metabolic disorders, skin disorders, immune system disorders, pharmacogenetic testing, carrier screening for couples in family planning, pre-disposition testing, infertility testing, pre-conception/pre-implantation testing, precision medicine testing of cancer specimens, and so on. CEN4GEN supports the notion that health related genetic testing, also known as medical genetic testing, is most meaningful and has greater success to maximize its benefits if a healthcare practitioner is involved in the testing process with the client. This is important to instigate clinical counseling as well as clinical management depending on what clinical signs the client has, what the test results reveal and what should be next done clinically for the betterment of the patient’s health. For our health related medical genetic testing options, CEN4GEN provides clinical support for our clients who may require any relevant pre- as well as post- counseling from our certified team of clinicians in order to ascertain what testing is relevant as well as to provide insights on the meaning of test results and follow up recommendations. Clients can choose the CEN4GEN clinical support team to assist them with the needs of their test, or they can also mediate the testing request and follow up recommendations with their private healthcare practitioner.
Do you think that genetic testing and analysis should be standardized into our healthcare systems?
DNA is one of the fundamental molecules of life. From the discovery of the DNA structure only a few decades ago to the rapid advancement in technology and knowledge leading to the unraveling the human genome sequence, its gene content, the functions of genes and most importantly genetic variants that have relevance to diseases, traits and genetic susceptibility, it is inevitable that each person’s unique genetic blueprint influences who they are, their lifestyle, and their risk towards developing common, rare as well as serious diseases that are evident in the human population. It is also evident that a person’s unique genetic blueprint also influences his/her susceptibility to acquiring certain infections which have become more prominent from the recent COVID19 genetic epidemiologic studies.
Given the importance of DNA and how strongly it influences a person’s health, genetic testing should be a routine procedure integrated into the global healthcare system. At CEN4GEN, we believe that genetic testing integrated into routine healthcare systems will:
- help to understand clinical symptoms, to make diagnostic decisions, and to provide better treatments and patient care;
- help to determine whether a patient is a carrier of or at risk of developing a medical condition;
- within the context of preventive medicine, help in the early detection of certain clinical conditions of patients by using early detection molecular medicine strategies, and such could be used to delay or prevent disease progression;
- help patients make more effective reproductive and lifestyle decisions;
- with the advent of personalized medicine / precision medicine, it provides more definitive clinical diagnosis, as well as alternative treatment options especially for cancer patients, improves choice and dosage of certain medications which are uniquely personalized to each patient;
- provide confirmation in the diagnosis or risk of a medical condition;
- help unravel potential molecular mechanisms of a medical condition, especially for diagnostically challenging/puzzling medical conditions.
With such immense benefits that genetic testing can offer, not only can it tremendously assist in improving the quality of life of an individual, but also contribute toward significantly decreasing the overall healthcare cost, as well as increase the quality of clinical management.
With the advances in precision medicine changing the approach to certain diseases what are your thoughts on how this can be made more accessible to all patients?
Precision medicine is a new approach in health care which takes into account multiple factors in order to tailor more accurate diagnoses as well as more effective treatments and prevention measures to certain cohorts of patients or even to an individual patient. The healthcare providers and other specialists consider factors such as genetic variation in a cohort of patients or even in an individual patient, their lifestyle as well as other environmental factors, in deciding the most effective strategy in administering point of care. At CEN4GEN, we believe that precision medicine integrated into routine healthcare systems will:
- predict risks of disease development;
- select most effective as well as cost effective treatment, including prescribing more effective medications with no or less side effects;
- develop and customize more effective measures for disease prevention in the population;
- abrogate or minimize disease progression;
- better identify and improve detection of causative agents of diseases;
- find better clinical biomarkers that can help in disease diagnosis and treatment;
- minimize failure, reduce time as well as trial and error inefficiencies that are most common in inflating healthcare costs and impair patient care.
Given the many advances that precision medicine has to offer, the best strategy to effectively deploy precision medicine for use in global healthcare systems with diverse economies is to ensure that the technology utilized: becomes more cost effective, is simple to use, is rapid and delivers results within minutes, does not require the presence of highly skilled personnel to operate, is portable, allows for on-site laboratory testing, outputs data or a report that is easily understood and clinically actionable, and patent/technology transfer rights become easier to implement globally.
What trends and technologies do you find particularly interesting these days in your field of work?
It is quite amazing in regards to how biomedical technology is rapidly advancing at an exponential rate. There are many examples of recent innovative trends that will advance genetics to what I call – next generation genetics. An excellent example is the next generation sequencing technology. The first completed human genome sequence which was made available to the public in December 2001 cost over $1 billion USD and took more than 10 years to complete. In 2014, the cost to sequence the same human genome tremendously decreased to $1000 USD and took only a few days to sequence. At the present, the cost to sequence the exact human genome has decreased to around $400 USD and only takes less than a day to sequence. This can be attributed to the development of better reagents, more powerful computational hardware platforms, more powerful bioinformatics algorithms, and more powerful high throughput sequencers. The ultimate goal is to reduce the cost for human genome sequencing to less than $100 USD and in less than an hour to sequence. Such revolutionary advancement in next generation sequencing technology has clearly demonstrated that a significant decrease in the cost to obtain genome sequence data translates to a more cost effective healthcare system, as well as affordability for the patients and the service providers. Most importantly, it has made it possible for genetic testing platforms to become more globally accessible across countries with diverse economies. Certainly, the sequencing technology is rapidly evolving to the concept of a lab on chip portable stand alone device, which can inevitably sequence the human genome in a matter of a few minutes, does not require any highly trained personnel to use, and can be available in healthcare practitioners’ clinics. The availability of whole genome data allows for the detection and reporting of a wider assortment of clinical, therapeutic, as well as risk factor findings which are often not detected by targeted gene sequence analysis. Having cost effective, simple and fast access to genome data will be crucial to deploying precision medicine strategies within the global healthcare system, and towards the betterment of the well being and clinical management of individuals.
