Rahul Nahar Email and Phone Number

• Team lead driving Translational research activities performed as part of company sponsored CAR-T clinical trialso Assay development, validation & execution inhouse across different platforms including multi-color flow-cytometry panels (upto 12 colours), molecular biology (ddPCR) and immuno-assays (ELISA) for measuring pharmacokinetics (Persistence), immunogenicity, T-cell subsets, cytokines and other potential biomarkers. o Clinical Sample management including processing & storage of primary and derived daughter samples collected from the clinical trial for >400 timepoints. o Vendor management & Data analysis for outsourced assays.o SOPs / MDRs/ MQRs/ SEPs/ ATRs and industry standard documentationso Built a team of 3 people in addition to managing cross functional support

• Scientific and operational lead for Translational Oncology/Immuno-Oncology studies which are part of Phase I/II investigator initiated or company sponsored Phase I - III clinical trials involving Industry-Hospital-Academia collaborations across APAC (Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Australia, China) and USA.o Cross-functional role from conceptualization and designing the research plan to execution and data interpretation. o Manage operations around clinical sample handling; Drive data generation by multi-omic profiling of patient samples; Collaborate to generate a well characterized biobank of patient derived cells and models like organoids, fibroblasts and immune cell lines for functional assays.o Harmonize clinical & scientific goals with assay development, execution, data analysis and interpretation to (a) elucidate mechanisms of action of the checkpoint inhibitors and their combinations, (b) identify biomarkers of sensitivity or resistance and (c) support new target discovery and validation. • Genomics platform Lead: o Led multi-modal single cell RNA-seq with Total-seq & single cell TCR/BCR-seq assay development & execution for implementation on patient tissue samples.o Liaising with vendors and CROs for execution of various genomic assays (eg. Exome-seq, RNA-seq, Nanostring) and sequencing.o Driving evaluation and application of Spatial transcriptomics technologies for discovery and validations from patient specimens.o Driving and coordinating Data processing, analysis and interpretations with bioinformaticians, statisticians, IT teams and other internal and external scientists. • Co-led a project evaluating an external qPCR based diagnostics platform for gene expression signature based tests.• Reviewing and generating risk assessment documents for various laboratory workflows and working in an environment with strict emphasis on good lab & EHS practices.

Lead Post-doc in the genomics team of the Lung Cancer Translational and Clinical Research programme.During the course of the project, we performed• Multi-sector whole exome-sequencing (WES) and RNA-seq on >350 samples from 70+ resected patient tumors followed by targeted amplicon-seq based validations.• WES and RNA-seq on >100 biopsies from around 80 metastatic drug resistant patient tumors with matched normals. • SNP arrays were run for identifying copy number alterations for a subset of above samples.Key responsibilities included :(i) Co-ordination with clinicians, bioinformaticians, genomics assay developers, cancer biologists, immunologists to determine the apt use of the clinical samples and perform scientifically and clinically insightful analysis of the data.(ii) Processing patient tissue samples including library preparations for exome-seq, targeted amplicon-seq, whole-genome seq and RNA-seq. (iii) Management and bioinformatic analysis of the data generated and scientifically / clinically relevant interpretation of data analyzed. (iv) Managing two indirect reports, one each for wet and dry lab. In this work, we elucidate a distinct clonal architecture in early stage, treatment-naive EGFR-mutant lung adenocarcinomas with high intra-tumor heterogeneity and genomic instability, displaying signs of pervasive whole genome doubling and large number of region-specific mutations and copy number alterations. Applying similar genomic procedures to late-stage multi-drug resistant LUADs, we also studied the differences in their genomic landscape compared to early-stage, untreated tumors, providing insights into tumor evolution in the context of stage and drug treatment.

• Leading a six member team analysing pre-clinical genomics, epigenomics and transcriptomic datasets with largest client GlaxoSmithkline, PA, USA.• Analysis and scientific interpretation of Next generation sequencing and Array based datasets including ChIP-seq, Exome-seq, Microarray, DNA-methylation etc. • Contributed to projects involving discovery of somatic, germline and LOH mutations from Exome-seq data for MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX, USA; National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, WB, India and other reputed institutions.

Project title: Mechanisms of IKAROS (IKZF1) mediated Tumor suppression.This was a continuation of the project during my PhD term, where we show that (a) IKAROS expression could inactivate major survival signaling pathways downstream of the BCR-ABL1 kinase including JAK2-STAT5, RAS-ERK and PI3K-AKT. (b) IKAROS expression opposes MYC- and STAT5-dependent survival signals and activates the Arf/p53 pathway while the presence of BCL6 attenuates IKAROS mediated tumor suppression and (c) We identify a set of putative IKAROS target genes, which could potentially predict clinical outcome.Advisor: Markus Muschen, MD.

Pre-B cell receptor signaling in acute lymphoblastic leukemia.We show that (1) the transcription factor IKAROS co-operates with pre-B cell receptor in BCR-ABL1 driven ALL to mediate tumor suppression. (2) Pre-B cell receptor-mediated activation of Bcl6 induces pre-B cell quiescence through transcriptional repression of Myc and elucidate (3) Mechanisms of Ikaros mediated Tumor suppression

B.Tech Thesis: Detection of Enzymes and Metabolites in isoprenoid routes of Sandalwood Project involved characterization of the Isoprenoid metabolites from the Sandalwood plant in-vitro cultures. The project was selected by the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy - IIT Kharagpur for an Undergraduate Research Assistantship.Advisor: Dr. Satyahari Dey.

Worked on a Project to construct vectors to express shRNAs to knock down Gene Expression - cloned and expressed shRNAs against two genes OPTN and PI4KAdvisor: Dr. Ghanshyam Swarup

Worked on a Project titled "Mutational Analysis of Adenosine kinase from Leishmania donovani - explored the enzyme kinetics of a point mutant of the enzyme made in the lab where a cysteine hypothesised to play a role in catalysis was replaced by an alanine."Advisor: Dr. Alok K. Datta