The Lab

Ghunwa Nakouzi joined the HudsonAlpha Clinical Services Lab as remote associate director in 2018. Nakouzi received her PhD in Genetics from Case Western Reserve University in 2009. She completed her clinical fellowship training at University Hospitals-Cleveland Medical Center and is board certified in clinical molecular genetics and clinical biochemical genetics. Until recently, Nakouzi maintained her biochemical genetics experience by serving as assistant medical director of the Biochemical Genetics Lab at the Cleveland Clinic. Nakouzi has experience in both molecular and biochemical genetic clinical assay development and validation. Her dual-specialty empowers her with knowledge in a wide array of genetic disorders and with the ability to correlate results from molecular and biochemical tests to reach more accurate diagnoses for patients.

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Dr. Tsai completed his combined MD and PhD program (pharmacology and toxicology) at UC Irvine, then went to UCLA for his Anatomic and Clinical Pathology residency program as well as fellowships in Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology. Dr. Tsai is board-certified in Anatomic Pathology, Clinical Pathology, and Cytopathology. He holds New York certificate of qualification in Oncology, Genetic Testing, Virology, Bacteriology, Mycology, Toxicology, Cytology, and Histology. He has authored many publications in peer-reviewed journals, including a book chapter in Handbook of Immunohistochemistry and In situ Hybridization of Human Carcinomas. Previously, Dr. Tsai was the laboratory director of Human Longevity Inc.’s Oncology Division (before acquisition by NeoGenomics). Dr. Tsai was also responsible for the medical directorship of many urologic groups as well as the medical director of Houston Plus Diagnostics Laboratory.

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Brett Sundlof is clinical lab supervisor of the HudsonAlpha Clinical Services Lab. Brett previously worked at Sequenom as supervisor of sequencing modules supporting the MaterniT21 diagnostic test, utilizing Illumina-based NGS of cell-free fetal nucleic acid, and analysis of the relative amount of trisomy 21, 18, 13. Prior to that, Sundlof worked at LabCorp in molecular genetics and oncology laboratories, where he analyzed patient samples for inherited genetic diseases and gene mutations. Sundlof graduated with B.S. in health science from the State University of New York, SUNY Brockport.

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Melissa Kelly completed her PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She continued her learning experience as a post-doctoral fellow, working with Drs. Howard Jacob and Elizabeth Worthey at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. Later, she became the Lab Supervisor for Software Development and Informatics, under the direction of Dr. Worthey. During her time at HudsonAlpha, Melissa has been involved in a variety of projects, including diagnosis of rare disease through the Undiagnosed Diseases Network, identification of genetic modifiers in cystic fibrosis, and development of software for genomic analysis and interpretation.

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Nadiya Sosonkina graduated from the School of Pharmaceutical Science, Health Sciences University of Hokkado, Hokkaido, Japan in 2012. In the following year, she joined the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI where she ultimately joined the Howard Jacob laboratory, focusing on genetics of rare diseases. In 2015, Nadiya moved to HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, along with Jacob laboratory. In 2017, Dr. Sosonkina was selected as a trainee in the UAB-HudsonAlpha genomic Medicine Training program funded by National Human Genome Research Institute. Her research focused on analysis and evaluation of novel approaches to improvement of the diagnostic outcome for rare and undiagnosed diseases. She has a particular interest in the genetics of autism spectrum disorder. Upon completion of her fellowship, Dr. Sosonkina was offered a position of Clinical Translational Scientist at the Clinical Services Laboratory (CSL). She has joined CSL in July of 2019 and is excited about this opportunity to apply her knowledge and skills in human genetics and genomic medicine to the improvement of patients care.

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Kelly Williams completed her PhD at Iowa State University in 2009. Since then, she has enjoyed working at HudsonAlpha, first as a postdoctoral fellow in the Myers Lab and later as a senior scientist in the Absher Lab. Kelly has over 15 years of laboratory and analytical research experience in multidisciplinary fields including nutrition, toxicology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and genomics, epigenetics, and transcriptomics.

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Meghan Letson joined the HudsonAlpha Clinical Services Lab in February 2021 as a clinical lab technician. Letson earned her B.S. in genetics and genomics from The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Prior to joining the Institute, she was a medical and clinical laboratory technician with Passion HR, Inc. and a forestry field technician at Alabama A&M University Agribition.

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Laura Griffin joined the Hudson Alpha Clinical Lab Services team in March 2021 as a clinical laboratory technologist. She earned her bachelor’s degree in medical laboratory science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2011. Laura has previous experience working in the clinical laboratory at Huntsville Hospital and as a lead medical technologist at Crestwood Medical Center.

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John joins HudsonAlpha as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist. He has an M.S. in Biology from The University of Alabama. He most recently worked as a Senior Sequencing Specialist at Discovery Life Sciences.

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