Tshaka Cunningham

Chief Science Officer & Co-founder, TruGenomix Health, Inc.

Tshaka Cunningham, PhD is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of TruGenomix Health Inc., an emerging precision genomics biotechnology company that is harnessing the power of genomics to improve risk prediction and diagnosis of PTSD. Dr. Tshaka Cunningham previously served as the Scientific Program Manager for the Aging and Neurodegenerative Diseases Rehabilitation Research Program at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs within the Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Research & Development (VHA ORD). He was also a subject matter expert for the VHA ORD Genomic Medicine Implementation Program and convened the MVP-Diversity Working Group, which presented recommendations to the VA Genomic Medicine Program Advisory Committee on patient recruitment strategies to ensure that minority Veteran participation in the VA’s Million Veteran Program is maximized.

He is also Executive Director of the Faith Based Genetic Research Institute, a community-based nonprofit organization with a mission to democratize access to genomics and precision medicine in underrepresented minorities.

He earned a BA degree in Molecular Biology from Princeton University in New Jersey. He then worked as a research scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc., where he developed biological screening assays to identify drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. He earned his doctoral degree in molecular biology, with a focus on virology, from Rockefeller University in New York. He completed his postdoctoral training in immunology and tumor immunotherapy at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, and at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.

(Tshaka Cunningham | TruGenomix)/(Tshaka Cunningham – Ariadne Labs)