Anthony Kirilusha Email & Phone Number

Mclean, Virginia, United States

Credence is one of the largest and fastest growing privately-held government technology and services companies. It solves agency-wide challenges in DevSecOps and AI solutions; protects our nation’s critical systems from cyber attacks; engineers innovative warfighting systems; and supports global health and humanitarian assistance programs that save lives and alleviate suffering. I serve as the Chief Scientific Officer. In this role, I support the rapid growth of the healthcare and biomedical division by investing in innovative research programs, building and improving sophisticated data management systems, and augmenting the mission of federal agencies with a healthcare focus. I also interface with program and business leaders across the company, and with strategic industry, academic, and government partners.

Bethesda, Maryland, United States

The NIH Office of Strategic Coordination (Common Fund) develops and manages programs that address emerging scientific opportunities and pressing challenges in biomedical research that no single NIH Institute or Center (IC) can address on its own, but are of high priority for the NIH as a whole. The Common Fund is a unique resource at NIH, functioning as a “venture capital” space where high-risk, innovative endeavors with the potential for extraordinary impact can be supported. I provide scientific and executive leadership for multiple trans-NIH programs. Responsibilities include:• Developing funding solicitations and overseeing all stages of awardee selection.• Managing the budget of the assigned programs (~$40-100M annually).• Overseeing multiple high-complexity Other Transaction projects.• Developing and adjusting program milestones and deliverables in response to changing priorities, emerging opportunities, or challenges.• Co-chairing the trans-NIH Software Tools working group.• Serving on the steering committee of the NIH Cloud Platform Interoperability Program (NCPI).• Leading project-specific teams.• Serving on the OSC Awards Committee and the OSC Process Committee.• Representing the Common Fund at professional society meetings and trans-government committees/collaborations.• Working with NIH senior leadership to facilitate development of new programs.• Working with Common Fund leadership to recruit new team members.

Bethesda, Md

The Cartilage and Connective Tissue Program supports the study of function, injuries, and diseases of musculoskeletal connective tissues. I provided scientific and administrative leadership for ~150-200 research project, training, and center grants ($55M annually). Responsibilities included:• Facilitating all stages of the grant process (except peer review), from mission relevance evaluation and pre-application consultation to post-study section consultation, award activation, and post-award activities.• Engaging with the extramural scientific community by regularly attending and presenting at meetings, seminars, and workshops.• Serving as the NIAMS liaison for HRHR research and the NIAMS representative to the Common Fund High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program.• Serving as the NIAMS liaison to the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy.• Serving as the NIAMS lead for the Smart and Connected Health program and as the NIAMS liaison to the NSF.• Mentoring detailees and junior program staff.• Chairing the genomic DAC.• Advising the CF HRHR working group on developing a process for a partially anonymous review of Transformative R01 applications. The process was inspired in part by the NIAMS RISK program.• Representing the institute at trans-NIH and trans-government committees.• Co-chairing the NIAMS Select Pay committee.• Working with extramural leadership to recruit new team members.

Bethesda, Md

Connecting NIH’s many data systems is a critical step toward improving researchers’ access to all types of data. NIH has invested significant resources into the generation of large-scale datasets, such as human genomic, clinical, and imaging data. Many of these data are stored in different cloud-based systems (a.k.a. cloud platforms) that are stewarded by multiple ICs across the NIH. The goal of the NIH Cloud Platform Interoperability (NCPI) program is to enable a federated data ecosystem that will facilitate researcher-driven analyses of datasets across multiple cloud-based platforms and repositories. This will be accomplished through testing and implementing standards and approaches for systems interoperability and universal authentication. I provided administrative and scientific leadership for the NCPI program. Responsibilities included:• Overseeing the development of the Research Opportunity Announcement (ROA)• Serveing as the interim program director• Leading strategic planning activities• Serving as the primary point of contact for the awardees and internal stakeholders• Serving on the NCPI Steering Committee• Developing milestones and deliverables to meet the strategic needs of the program

Bethesda, Md

The National Institutes of Health launched the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative to speed innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies for COVID-19 testing. The RADx-ATP program was tasked with increasing testing capacity and throughput by identifying existing and late-stage testing platforms for COVID-19 that are far enough advanced to achieve rapid scale-up or expanded geographical placement in a short amount of time. In July of 2020 I was detailed to RADx-ATP to work with Drs. Rick Bright, Rachael Fleurence, and Bruce Tromberg to provide leadership for the RADx-ATP program. Responsibilities included:• Managing the program's $230M budget.• Evaluating applications for potential return on investment.• Developing the overall RADx-ATP negotiation strategy.• Leading cross-cutting teams of NIH and external staff responsible for carrying out the scale-up projects (6 teams of 8 to 30 members each).• Coordinating with NIH senior leadership and other government agencies to ensure broad availability of COVID-19 tests.• Representing RADx on multiple trans-government working groups that included the FDA, CDC, DoD, HHS, BARDA, and others.• Leading the RADx Variants Task Force charged with rapidly identifying emerging COVID-19 variants and ensuring that publicly available tests are able to detect them.Laboratory-based testing capacity was expanded by >500,000 test/day within the first six months and was maintained at that level until spring of 2022. The overall processing time for laboratory-based testing workflows was kept consistently under 24 hours. Simultaneously, by early 2021, ATP supported the production of ~500,000 COVID-19 POC test kits per day, with a focus on products that do not require a reader to interpret the result. This was accomplished at $38M under budget, allowing for the remaining funds to be reallocated to critical trans-RADx clinical work.

Bethesda, Md

The NIH HEAL (Help End Addiction Long-term) initiative is taking an “all hands on deck” approach to the opioid crisis, garnering expertise from almost every Institute and Center (IC) to accelerate research and address the public health emergency from all angles. Enhancing the FAIRness (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) of the data generated by the consortium will enable rapid and broad use of these data in combating the opiod crisis. In collaboration with senior HEAL leadership, NIH OD, extramural program directors, and consortium participants, we are working to develop and implement a comprehensive data management / sharing policy. The ultimate goal is to enable discovery and use of consortium data by the broadest possible audience of users.

Bethesda, Md

I led a biomedical health research program seeking to identify and understand the potential influence of genetic variants on risk of developing type 2 diabetes. I designed, planned, organized, executed, and managed three concurrent projects addressing interrelated questions: (1) transcriptional regulation of pancreatic islets; (2) epigenetic regulation of pancreatic islets and hepatocytes; and (3) the development of pancreatic cells. Responsibilities included:• Directing multiple research projects investigating mechanistic links between genetic variance and risk of type 2 diabetes.• Contributing to the FUSION (Finland-United States Investigation of NIDDM Genetics) study - an international collaboration funded by NIDDK.• Supervising experiments performed by technicians and post-baccalaureate fellows.• Mentoring post-baccalaureate fellows.• Leading a formal journal club for summer students.• Serving on the NHGRI trainee advisory council (GTAC) (2015 – 2018).

Pasadena, Ca

I led a pioneering research program studying the transcriptional regulation of myogenesis. The program took advantage of nascent Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology to measure binding of transcription factors to DNA (ChIP-seq) and to measure the abundance of RNA transcripts in bulk cell preps (RNA-seq). As a part of this effort, I helped to test a prototype Solexa (now Illumina) sequencer and developed the bioinformatics tools needed to analyze and interpret the resulting data. My work was published in four peer-reviewed manuscripts of high profile. I discovered and refined the target sequence for Myogenin – a transcription factor critical to skeletal muscle development. Responsibilities included:• Planning and carrying out an extensive set of experiments to characterize genome-wide occupancy of seven transcription factors responsible for regulating development of skeletal muscle.• Co-authoring peer-reviewed publications with the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA elements) consortium.• Developing bioinformatics tools and utilities using C++, Python, and Mathematica.• Supervising a technician and summer students.• Mentoring undergraduate and junior graduate students.• Advising industry partners regarding biomedical research, including a collaboration with Solexa/Illumina to validate prototype next-generation sequencers - an emerging, ground-breaking technology.• Advising academic partners regarding biomedical research, including development and validation the ChIP-seq protocol in collaboration with HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.

Pasadena, Ca

I provided full time informatics and computer programming support for research conducted in Dr. Barbara Wold’s lab. I independently designed and led projects aimed at identifying areas of the mouse genome responsible for transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Responsibilities included:• Developing and implementing a new algorithm for finding regions of DNA conserved between species (FastComp).• Developing and maintained a database of verified transcription factor binding sites.• Developing software tools (C++ and Python) to support biomedical research.• Clustering microarray expression data to gene expression trajectories during skeletal muscle development.• Generating gene network models using applied graph theory.• Administering linux workstations.

Indianapolis, Indiana Area

• Investigated a targetable regulatory pathway linked to increased leptin secretion in humans.• Genotyped and performed RNA abundance analysis of human adipose tissue samples.• Presented findings at the Keystone Symposia on T2D and Insulin Resistance.• Discussed with company leadership the challenges of turning discovery into deliverables, including target identification, efficacy evaluation, and clinical trials.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Molecular Biology

Master Of Science (M.S.), Computer Science

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Computer Science

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Mathematics

High School Diploma