Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Sr. Genomics/AI/ML Scientist, NVIDIA
Biography
Pankaj Vats, PhD, is a Senior Genomics and Artificial Intelligence Scientist at NVIDIA Clara Parabricks. He develops GPU-accelerated, AI-driven genomic technologies for research and clinical applications, with expertise in cancer genomics, structural-variant detection, and liquid-biopsy analysis. His work includes DeepSAP, a transformer-based RNA-seq alignment workflow, and MambaSV, a sequence state-space model for structural-variant resolution. Dr. Vats applies foundation models and high-performance computing to advance scalable genomic tools for precision oncology, translational research, diagnostic laboratories, and biopharmaceutical partners.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2027 Silicon Valley
Track Chair:
Victor Velculescu, Johns Hopkins
PMWC Award Ceremony
• Rebecca Fitzgerald, University of Cambridge (Luminary)
• Mary-Claire King, University of Washington (Pioneer)
• Nickolas Papadopoulos, Johns Hopkins (Pioneer)
Featured Speakers
• Mary-Claire King, University of Washington
• Rebecca Fitzgerald, University of Cambridge
• Nickolas Papadopoulos, Johns Hopkins
• Victor Velculescu, Johns Hopkins
• Phil Castle, NIH
• Elad Ziv, UCSF
• Ash Alizadeh, Stanford
• Hamed Amini, Hepta
• Becky Taub, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals
• Trevor Pugh, University of Toronto
• Doga Gulhan, Harvard
• Pranav Rajpurkar, Harvard
• Chris Douville, Johns Hopkins
• Sylvia Katina Plevritis, UCSF
In Precision Medicine, Almost All Diseases Are Genetically Rare
A genetics-first keynote framing risk, prevention, and actionability.
The Reckoning
What the first wave of early detection got right and wrong.
The End of One Size Fits All
Risk-stratified screening, high-risk populations, and single-cancer tests.
Treating Disease at the Earliest Stage
Where detection and therapeutic interception begin to converge.
Pre-Cancer Detection & the Liver Disease Frontier
cfDNA and clinical action across the liver-disease-to-cancer continuum.
AI Across Multimodal Signals
Fragmentomics, methylation, imaging, pathology, and integration: hype versus real science.
PMWC Hall of Impact
Previous Speakers Include
Nobel laureates, technology founders, regulators, CEOs and scientific pioneers who have taken the PMWC stage.
