Our Team

Jason is a registered medical laboratory scientist with over 10 years experience in the clinical environment and oversees the management and operation of the facility. He has specialist interests in genomics and His responsibilities see him ensuing both researcher and clinician needs are meet by the facility and that developments within the laboratory are communicated to relevant stakeholders. He also serves as the laboratory quality advisor ensuring the laboratory meets quality standards set by IANZ for the accreditation GCG holds.

Purvi is a registered medical laboratory scientist and has more than 12 years experience working in the genetics diagnostic and research environment. She has expert knowledge of high end genomics and related technologies with a specialist interest in Next Generation Sequencing.

Purvi’s daily responsibilities see her managing project design, assay development and analysis of both research and clinical samples on the NextSeq500 platform.

Chandra holds a masters in chemistry and molecular genetics and is a registered medical laboratory scientist with over 10 years experience in the research environment and  5 years experience working in IANZ accredited genomics laboratory. He is responsible for the daily operation of the Mass Array and Ion Torrent platforms in GCG

Peter is a consultant haematologist at Auckland City Hospital and Professor of Pathology in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland. He is a graduate of the University of Otago Medical School, and after postgraduate training in clinical and laboratory haematology in Auckland, he was a Wellcome – HRC research fellow in the Department of Haematology, Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London. Peter is involved in several co-operative group and investigator initiated studies in blood disorders and stem cell transplantation. He is co-director of the Leukaemia and Blood Cancer Research Unit, with interests in blood cancer genomics, biomarkers in leukaemia, and the monitoring of measurable residual disease. Peter is clinical director of the Auckland Regional Tissue Bank, and Grafton Clinical Genomics.

Professor Bohlander is advising on the project design and appropriate choice of platforms. He has 35 years of experience in the genomics field, including directing several diagnostic laboratories in Germany. He has worked in the field of Next Generation Sequencing for more than 10 years both for the discovery of somatic mutations in blood cancers and the discovery of germline mutations in inherited conditions. He has authored more than 20 publications based on NGS results and holds a board certification in Human Genetics.

Cris graduated in Medicine in 1989 then completed PhD in the University of Auckland. After a four-year postdoctoral fellowship in Melbourne, Cris spent six years in Cambridge University, UK, where he was a Fellow of St Edmunds College. While there he co-founded a bioinformatics biotechnology company that became listed on the Tokyo stock exchange in 2007. He leads a cross-disciplinary research team of clinicians, biologists and data scientists who use genomics bioinformatics to better understand human disease, especially cancer. Cris sits on the Board of Directors of the NZ Institute of Environmental Science and Research and is Vice President of the Auckland Branch of the Royal Society of NZ. He leads the Genomics Into Medicine Strategic Research Initiative in Auckland and Chairs the Auckland Regional Tissue Bank Scientific Advisory Board.