Jason Powers Email & Phone Number

• Head of Bioinformatics responsible for long term vision, product and pipeline evaluation and onboarding, client consultations, and overall oversight. • Oversee teams in Pipeline Development, Product Development, Biostatistics, and Analytics, with a team of upto 30 total scientists, roughly half PhD and half MS level scientists.• Team supports BioPharma through all phases of development via both Pipeline development, analysis and custom ad hoc work. • Ensure best Scientific practices and regulatory processes are followed (GxP and CAP/CLIA where appropriate).

Durham, North Carolina, Us

• Long term strategic planning - monitor competitive and market intelligence for key trends, present them to Senior Leadership as they develop their strategic vision for the organization. • Support Leadership team presentations to C-suite executives, helping to craft and organize the overall story for regular business review meetings. • Build business case for multiple initiatives, including geographic expansion and new service lines• Compile dossiers on potential M&A targets, provide evaluation of technology and fit within the organization at large. Facilitate process from early engagement through initial offer.

Durham, North Carolina, Us

Corporate Strategy team at Q2 Solutions. Focused on developing business plans and justifications for new innovations within the broader organization.

Durham, North Carolina, Us

EA Genomics, a division within Q2 Solutions, is a global leader in clinical genomic research. As a service provider, we contract with many major pharmaceutical companies, partnering with them to design, develop, validate, and execute technically advanced, cutting edge genomic assays. I lead a team of Bioinformaticians within the Translational Genomics group. Our team takes on a variety of tasks in support of the overall organization. Specifically my team:• Conducts custom analysis projects for our Pharmaceutical partners, by working with the clients to understand the goals of their experiment, and executing on the appropriate analysis to achieve those goals• Validation of genomic assays. As a CLIA-certified lab, EA Genomics conducts many genomic studies involving human patients. Before any assay can be used, it must be thoroughly vetted for accuracy, repeatability, precision, etc. My team perform all data analysis needed to ensure our assays are of the utmost quality• Drive new service offerings by working closely with sales and the Translational Genomics laboratory staff to produce new services for our customers• Develop novel algorithms. The bulk of my team consists of Ph.D. level Bioinformaticians, capable of developing cutting edge, best in class analysis tools (HLA calling, Fusion detection, CNV detection, etc)

Durham, North Carolina, Us

In this role at EA Genomics, I led a group of bioinformaticians whose primary focus is the development of new clinical next generation sequencing diagnostics. This development encompasses the entire assay development up until final software testing. Responsibilities for my group included:• Consulting with clients on their needs/projects• Design of the assay, including decisions on capture technique, and the design thereof• Development of novel algorithms to solve challenging problems in bioinformatics (e.g. CNV detection, SNP calling, breakpoint detection, etc.)• Development of pipelines to analyze clinical data• Handing off of software and pipelines to the clinical software testing and validation teamIn addition to these clinical assays, we also consult with various clients on research use only applications. Similar to our role in the clinical space, we are often involved from the beginning to the end of projects for our clients, both consulting and executing the study design.

In this role I oversaw the group that is responsible for the production lab next generation sequencing bioinformatics performed at EA | Quintiles. The group is involved in all aspects of next generation sequencing projects including: • consulting on project design• analyzing sequencing data• troubleshooting problematic samples• evaluating new sequencers• development of new analysis pipelines and features• transmission of data to the clientThe group supports RNA Seq, small RNA Seq, and DNA Seq (primarily WES) assays for our clients and most importantly, ensures the integrity of the data produced by the production lab. This wide range of responsibilities required me to interface with Principal Investigators, sales staff, lab personnel, and project managers on a daily basis to meet project deadlines and client requests. In addition to these responsibilities, I was the lead developer on the company’s RNASeq analysis pipeline, run on over 10,000 samples to date. I was also the co-developer of our targeted DNASeq pipeline, which was written in such a way as to allow for everything from small amplicon panels to WES.

In this role I continue to be a key member of the Bioinformatics team at EA. My focus in this role is responding to client requests, and ensuring that client data comes off the sequencer and is processed in a timely fashion. I oversee the QC analysis for all standard analysis samples that we sequence. When samples fail, I track down the source of the failure and resolve the issue. I lead our RNA pipeline development process, and oversee delivery of data to the clients. I am actively involved in R&D projects, including our continuing efforts in clinical validations, and I am responsible for all things PacBio.

In this position I did a little of everything related to next generation sequencing. I worked on a wide range of next generation sequencing platforms, including all of the Illumina platforms, as well as the PacBio RS and RSII. On the Illumina platform led the development of a new RNA-Seq analysis pipeline, now the standard RNASeq analysis pipeline used by EA. Also developed QC pipelines for RNASeq and small RNASeq. These are also now the standards used by our company. In addition, I have been responsible for all things related to PacBio, including developing all the basic analysis pipelines, bacterial assembly pipelines, base modification analysis, and phased-SNP detection. Also contributing to validation assays for clinical work that we are developing.

Us

I worked in the lab of Dr. Bryan Cullen, a James B. Duke Professor and the Director of Duke Center for Virology. The lab is primarily interested in the relationship of small RNAs to viral infection. I spent some time involved in studying both Epstein Barr Virus and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, but my primary focus was on HIV. The main question I addressed was what role does cellular miRNAs play in HIV infection? Using a wide variety of molecular and computational techniques including a Next Generation Sequencing on the GAIIx and HiSeq Illumina platforms and a newly developed technology termed PAR-CLIP I investigated these questions.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Us

In August of 2003 I entered the Genetics PhD program at NC State University. Upon completion of my rotations I joined the laboratory of Steven A. Lommel, a William Neal Reynolds Professor, Interim Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Assistant Vice-Chancellor for Research at NC State University. While in his lab my work centered largely on the interaction between the RNA silencing pathway in plants and invading viruses. This work culminated in 2 first author papers published in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions and Virology.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Us

Responsible for 75-90 students, Juniors and SeniorsLed Discussion in 3 classes, every Thursday

Learned new lab techniques, and experienced a different culture

Us

For 6 weeks I completed an internship at Global Vaccines in RTP, North Carolina. Working there provided me with my first hands on experience in mammalian virology and cell culture techniques. While 6 weeks did not allow me to accomplish a great deal, I did learn quite a bit while working at this company.

Gainesville, Florida, Us

Worked as an undergraduate researcher on a project involving Cytoplasmic Male Sterility in maize

Gainesville, Florida, Us

Took part in planting, cross-breeding, harvesting, and sorting genetically engineered maize

Master Of Business Administration - Mba

Phd, Genetics; Minor, Biotechnology

B.S., Microbiology And Cell Science; Minor, Chemistry