FOUNDER & CEO (Encoder)

Plavi Mittal PhD

Plavi founded In-Depth with the goal of implementing a pipeline for precision medicine that can revolutionize the diagnostic odyssey faced by patients with rare diseases. Building on her scientific training and expertise in rare neuromuscular disease, she is focused on uniting leaders across academia and industry to improve healthcare research.

Plavi recently transitioned away from her role as CEO of the Jain Foundation where she was focused on the disease LGMD2B. She has previously worked as a healthcare consultant at a global consulting firm. Plavi earned a PhD in biology from Brandeis University and performed postdoctoral research in oncology at Harvard Medical School.

Co-Founder (Transcriber)

Nupur Garg PhD

Nupur lends her experience in rare disease research management to implement In-Depth’s genomics research program. She previously served as a Director of Research for the Jain Foundation and Program Director for the Lymphatic Malformation Institute. Nupur received a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from Rutgers University.

Co-Founder (TRANSLATOR)

Nicole Bowman

Nicole brings her ‘omics perspective to poise In-Depth as a leader in healthcare research. Before joining In-Depth, her research leveraged proteomics to unpack the genetics behind psychiatric disease. Nicole earned an MS in neuroscience from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania after studying biology at Bryn Mawr College.

Marketing and Communications Manager (Activator)

Jenny Mathew

Jenny has wide ranging expertise in managing high potential startups in all aspects of their digital media, promotional, and social media efforts, creating targeted marketing campaigns, content and new opportunities. Jenny has a double Masters in Communication Studies.

General Counsel (Proof Reader)

Helga Marin Gestsdottir

Helga Marin advises company strategies and their deployment. She works closely with IDG’s scientific team and is responsible for guiding, drafting and negotiating a variety of operational and structural agreements including servicing and licensing contracts with Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry partners. Helga Marin has a Master of Laws degree in Intellectual Property Law and Policy from the University of Washington.

Medical Advisor

Chamindra Konersman MD

Chamindra influences and refines the IDG-physician relationship. Her perspective as a practicing physician helped ensure that the clinical intake form is comprehensive and easy to use. She is a neurologist at Rady Children’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Neurosciences at US San Diego.

Medical Advisor

Matthew Wicklund MD

Matthew’s patient-centered philosophy and diagnostic expertise informs IDG’s patient outreach and advocacy strategy. Matthew is a practicing physician and Professor and Director of the Clinical Neuromuscular Pathology Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Medical Advisor

Matthew Harms, MD

Matthew’s expertise in rare and orphan muscular dystrophies guides IDG’s patient-focused mission. Matthew is an Assistant Professor and practicing physician at Columbia University and an active researcher at the Institute for Genomic Medicine.

Executive Advisor

Nitin Mittal

Nitin brings an extensive business background with a strong focus on growth and market impact in both developed and developing countries and deep experience in applying technology innovations to health.  He is a co-founder of ConceptualEyes whose mission is to accelerate health innovation and discovery by enabling pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies and academic research institutions to interactively generate hypotheses using both public and private medical data.

Nitin remains an executive consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute and The Gates Foundation. He was previously the Chief Operating Officer and Interim Head of the Global Good Fund for Bill Gates, whose mission is to use technology innovation to save and improve lives in the developing world.

Prior to Global Good, Nitin managed business development and strategy for various teams in Microsoft. Before that, he was a Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at GE’s Vendor Financial Services (VFS) where he drove both organic and inorganic growth of the business to deliver a 21% increase in net income for the business from FY04 to FY05.

Prior to GE, Nitin was at The Boston Consulting Group where he did business strategy and corporate development projects across many industries.

Nitin has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, a M.S. from Duke University, and a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, India.

Scientific Advisor

Anshul Kundaje PhD

Anshul Kundaje is an Assistant Professor of Genetics and Computer Science at Stanford University. The Kundaje lab develops statistical and machine learning methods for large-scale integrative analysis of functional genomic data to decode the human genome and decipher the genetic and molecular basis of disease. Anshul completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science  from Columbia University. As a postdoc at Stanford University from 2012-2014 and a research scientist at MIT and the Broad Institute from 2012-2014, he led the integrative analysis efforts for two of the largest functional genomics consortia – The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) and The Roadmap Epigenomics Project. Dr. Kundaje is a recipient of the 2016 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and The 2014 Alfred Sloan Foundation Fellowship.

Scientific Advisor

Nilah Ioannidis PhD

Nilah’s expertise in genomics and biophysics guides IDG’s research strategy. Nilah is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Genetics and Biomedical Data Science at Stanford School of Medicine, where she develops methods for clinical interpretation of personal genomes.

Scientific Advisor

Monkol Lek PhD

Monkol is a Research Fellow in the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. He works as a senior analyst on multiple projects spanning work conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, including; the Exome Aggregation Consortium, SEQ-NMD and MYO-SEQ undiagnosed muscle disease consortia, and he leads a team at the NIH Center for Mendelian Genomics. This expertise guides IDG’s innovation goals.

Scientific Advisor

Rangan Sukumar PhD

Dr. Rangan Sukumar is the Senior Analytics Architect at Cray Inc. where he is a solutions architect building bleeding-edge solutions around artificial intelligence; a technology visionary designing analytic products for Big Data problems and an analytics evangelist – demonstrating the convergence of Big Data and Supercomputing for discovery-oriented business models.

He is a co-founder of ConceptualEyes whose mission is to accelerate health innovation and discovery by enabling pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies and academic research institutions to interactively generate hypotheses using both public and private medical data.

Before Cray, he served as the founding group leader, data scientist and artificial intelligence/machine learning researcher designing and optimizing algorithms on world-class supercomputing infrastructures at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

He has a B.E, M.S and PhD in Electrical Engineering, and over 70 publications in domains spanning healthcare, scientific discovery, social network analysis, electric grid modernization and public policy informatics.

He is also recipient of several awards – the most recent one being an R&D100 in 2016 that are considered the – “Oscars of Invention” for an AI system that understands unstructured text from literature to help scientists design/discover new hypotheses.

Scientific Advisor

Madhuri Hegde PhD

Madhuri directs the laboratory responsible for the clinical sequencing, analysis, and interpretation of IDG’s WGS Program. Madhuri is the VP of Lab Services and CSO of PerkinElmer’s Genomic Lab Services. She has over 20 years’ experience developing high-throughput sequencing methods and is active in the working groups of the ACMG to define national standards for clinical genetics.

Scientific Advisor

Alice Whittemore PhD

Alice’s expertise in statistical genomics guides IDG’s research and discovery strategy. Alice is a Professor of Health Research and Policy in Epidemiology and Biomedical Data Science at Stanford School of Medicine. Her research produces new methods for analyzing the genetics of cancer and other diseases.

Scientific Advisor

Manuel Rivas PhD

Manuel is Assistant Professor of Biomedical Data Science at Stanford School of Medicine and a member of the interdisciplinary biology research group Bio-X. He leads a team to develop statistical models and computational tools for population-scale studies using genomic and phenotype data.

Legal Advisor

Lorraine Boss

Lorraine is an attorney with Brosnan & Hegler, LLP in Garden City, New York. In addition to her law degree, Lorraine received a Master of Laws Degree in Taxation from New York University School of Law, and is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant. Lorraine supervises the firm’s practice in Private Foundations and Exempt Organizations. Lorraine’s background in the legal and tax aspects of private foundations and public charities provides In-Depth with expertise with legal and tax compliance.

Advocacy Advisor

Patricia Weltin

Patricia Weltin is the CEO and Founder of the Rare Disease United Foundation, the nation’s leading rare disease advocacy organization. RDUF works on the challenges facing rare disease patients at a state-level and nationally. As a rare disease mom with a background in Finance, Patricia started working in the rare disease space to help raise awareness for all people living with a rare disease. Patricia and her team are innovators in the rare disease space and have used their own rare disease journeys to positively affect change. In five years, RDUF has gone from the first state-based, non-disease specific non-profit to the voice of the 60 million people in the United States suffering from the physical, emotional and financial stress of living with a rare disease. RDUF programs target specific issues and approaches them with the wisdom, knowledge and passion that comes with living rare.

Executive Advisor

Bryan Barber

Bryan Barber is the co-founder, Investor and Board Member of Myonexus Therapeutics and currently Chairs the Patient Advocacy Board. He is also the President and Founder of the LGMD2D Foundation whose mission is to expedite the development of a cure or therapy for Limb-girdle Muscular Dystrophy 2D (LGMD2D). In addition to educating patients and physicians the Foundation maintains a patient registry, funds and monitors research and progress, provides financial support to accelerate clinical trials, and encourages scientific collaboration.

For over a decade Mr. Barber is also been the President and co-founder of ADVANTIS Global Inc. an Inc.500 Company providing IT Contingent Workforce Solutions and Technical Services for the Fortune 500 and leading Mid-market companies Nationwide. Mr. Barber is a Graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder with a BS in Business