Hello, how are you? Thank you for having me here. This is Ruben Bonilla-Guerrero. I am going to talk to you today about clinical laboratory-based career paths. Here are my disclosures. I'm an employee of Admera Health. Of course, I received my compensation, my stock subsidy, and 401k retirement plan from them. I have spent my whole life in genetics and genomics. And from my early days post-medical school, I decided to go into the laboratory side of medicine, which is dear to my heart. Since the very beginning of my medical school career, I was always interested in the laboratory side of medicine. I wanted to run a test. I wanted to understand how they work. I wanted to understand the interpretation and their clinical application, having in mind a clinical training. It was very clear to me that that was what I wanted to do in life. And I can tell you that it's a beautiful career path. Working in the laboratory gives you the opportunity to impact many patients, many, many, many different patients, interact with all forms of providers, and give the highest, the highest quality of care that you can, not only for a one-time use of a test, but in some cases for a continuous use of different tests throughout the patient's lifetime. Clinical genetics and genomics right now, it is a beautiful path that you can choose for your career in the laboratory side of genetics. Originally, it was divided into three categories, molecular genetics, cytogenetics, and biochemical genetics. Not long ago, molecular genetics and cytogenetics fused into what is called genetics and genomics, which covers both aspects of it. Biochemical genetics remain as one of them. You can choose through an American Board of Medical Genetics certified program to choose, to select either the path that will take you to the genetics and genomics side, or do biochemical genetics alone. You could do the three of them or the two of them combined. It will give you the best, most round-up training that there is right now, since those two work very, very close with each other. Molecular genetics, as you know, it was originally the analysis of any form of nucleic acid. Cytogenetics was the analysis and interpretation of chromosomal abnormalities that, little by little, end up using a lot more molecular tools in their design. And biochemical genetics, which is the analysis, quantification, detection, and interpretation of different intermediate metabolites, biomarkers, for the diagnosis and monitoring and following up of certain metabolic disorders or a large number of metabolic disorders. All of them are beautiful paths that you can choose, and any of the ABMG programs can give you an extraordinary training, exposure to many different patients, collaborate with research, principal investigators, clinical research, basic science research, and of course, it will train you how to do the job, which is what you want to do. I have had the opportunity to be trained by some of the best people in the industry and in the field. I'm honored that I, what I was trained, and I still use my training up to today. I actually combined a different one, including clinical pharmacology, and it has opened the doors for many different areas that are part of genetics. The training paths that you can get are genetics and genomics and biochemical, and those are complementary to each other. They're not in any way exclusive or not inter-workable with themselves. It is by far a collaboration between the two of them. One serves as confirmation of the other one. Sometimes there's no confirmation, and you do get only one form of analysis. However, they work together for a lifetime. You could start the diagnosis in one direction and end up with a test that will continue monitoring the patient for a lifetime in a different one. You could, for instance, the perfect example of this is any disorder that is included in the current newborn screening program that starts as a biochemical, then eventually gets confirmed by a second biochemical test, and then further, if not confirmed, finding out the specific DNA change, the variant that it's happening on the patient or the patient has that potentially elucidates severity of the disease and therefore goes back to the provider to continue using biochemical genetics tests to monitor the patient throughout the lifetime. So these two work very, very, very close with each other. In your career as a laboratory provider, as a laboratory geneticist, you will have the opportunity to interact with other laboratory geneticists in different areas. You will also have the opportunity to work closely with clinical geneticists who will order this test, also with genetic counselors, which are part of any genetics laboratory. Every genetics laboratory should have genetic counselors as they are the first line of defense about test selection, test ordering, providing the support not only to the physician ordering the test, whether it's a geneticist or not, but also to the patients, which are critical to understand the results. Therefore, you'll have the ability to interact with all of them, the opportunity to work close with all of them, both in a clinical scenario as well as in a research scenario. Your career path that you can choose at the end could take you in four different directions. You could work in your academic institution that has its own genetics laboratory that will run its test to serve its population that usually does not serve any other patient outside the academic institution. It will give you the opportunity to do your research as well as your clinical interaction. Then you have hospitals that are a little bit more of a hybrid. So, you have organizations that have an academic institution front as well as a commercial laboratory site that serves as a reference lab. Therefore, you get both. You get an academic position within the university or hospital that they belong, as well as you get your clinical work in the laboratory that is their for-profit site or their commercial site. All of these two are beautiful careers that are very, very rewarding in many different ways. You could be in a commercial laboratory that is only a reference lab, and usually those have a much larger footprint. Therefore, you'll see patients or you'll see you receive specimens and analyze and interpret from all kinds from all over the world depending on the lab, interact with many academic centers, and then give you the ability to explore your capabilities as you will see cases that most other organizations don't get to see due to the large volume size. Another career path that usually is forgotten is in the biopharma and or pharmacy industry. There are many pharmaceutical organizations that are looking for geneticists to become part of their team to help not only to diagnose diseases, but also to provide the research that will lead to the discovery and creation of new treatments that will require genetic testing or specific genetic results to be applicable. We're talking about personalized medicine, so any of these four paths are beautiful paths that will lead you into a very successful rewarding career. I happen to be part of every single fashion here, and I can tell you that while they are so different, they all have the patient in mind and they share that common track, so choose the one that you want, explore the one that you think is going to be the best for you, and don't be afraid to switch from one to another one. Everybody comes from academic centers, everybody comes from avian g-trained programs at least here, so be happy, do what you want to do since that's the best way to do it, the best possible way. Thank you very much for your attention, and I guess I'll be answering questions via email if they were necessary.

clinical laboratory-based career paths

genetics and genomics

biochemical genetics

career exploration

Ruben Bonilla-Guerrero