Ahmad Abou Tayoun is the Director of the Genomics Center of Excellence at Al Jalila Children’s, and an Associate Professor of Genetics at Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences. He completed his doctoral studies in genetics at Dartmouth College, followed by a fellowship in molecular diagnostics at Dartmouth Medical School. In 2013, he joined Harvard Medical School where he completed his clinical molecular genetics fellowship and, in 2015, became board-certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG). Dr. Abou Tayoun is a fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMGG). Prior to joining Al Jalila Children’s, he was a director in the Division of Genomic Diagnostics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and also an assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Abou Tayoun’s main research interests are centered around characterizing the genomic landscape of pediatric diseases in the Middle East and cataloguing the normal genetic variation in this population. In addition, a significant component of his research program is centered around translating new genomic technologies, such as rapid whole genome sequencing (rWGS), long read sequencing and transcriptomics, into clinical care. Dr. Abou Tayoun serves on several expert groups in his field. He is a co-chair of the Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen) Hearing Loss Expert Group, a member of the ClinGen Sequence Variant Interpretation (SVI) group and a member of the American College of Genetics and Genomics Interpreting Sequence Variants (ISV) workgroup. In those capacities, Dr. Abou Tayoun is working with international experts to establish guidelines and recommendations for sequence variant interpretation in genomic diagnostic settings.

Alan Taylor is an American board certified genetic counsellor who received his MS in Genetic Counseling from Northwestern University in 2016. After graduation, he held a joint position between the Epilepsy Genetics Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and Claritas Genomics, a genetic testing laboratory. In his role at Boston Children’s, he provided genetic counselling to patients and families within the clinic while in his role at Claritas, he interpreted and reported genomic test results. In 2017, he expanded his clinical experience by joining the Neurometabolic and Mitochondrial Disease Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. Alan joined Al Jalila Children’s in 2018 and provides genetic counselling to families who have a genetic diagnosis or are planning to pursue genetic testing.