Professor Dhavendra Kumar is a Consultant in Clinical Genetics at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff University, United Kingdom. He is the lead Clinical Geneticist for Clinical Cardiovascular Genetics. He is the Honorary Professor to the Genomic Policy Unit at the University of South Wales, UK. He is also the Adjunct Professor to the Public Health Genetics Unit at the Chinese Capital Medical University, Beijing (China) and the Bio-Medical Research Unit at the King George's Medical University, Lucknow (India).
During his clinical genetics career spanning over 30 years, Professor Kumar has engaged in a number of special interest developments particularly clinical dysmorphology, paediatric metabolic medicine, neurogenetics, cancer genetics and cardiovascular genetics. Currently he leads the multi-disciplinary inherited cardiac conditions service at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff and the Research/ Development lead for cardiovascular genetics. He has initiated development and setting up of the International Cardiovascular Genomics Consortium as part of the Human Variome Project's 'Disease Specific Databases' development program.
He has authored/edited 'Genetic disorders of the Indian Subcontinent-Springer', Kluwer-Springer, 2004; 'Genomics and Clinical Medicine'- Oxford University Press, 2008; 'Principles and Practice of Clinical Cardiovascular Genetics'-Oxford University Press, 2010, 'Oxford Specialist Handbook on Inherited Cardiac Disease', Oxford University Press, 2011 and ' Genomics and Health in the Developing World', Oxford University Press, 2012. He has several peer-reviewed publications in pediatrics and clinical genetics. In 2006, he established and developed a new biomedical journal ('Genomic Medicine'-Springer) that led to setting up the official journal of the Human Genome Organization ('The HUGO Journal') and continues to serve as the co-editor. He is the founding editor in chief for the new genomics publications- Applied and Translational Genomics (Elsevier) and 'Genomic and Molecular Medicine (Morgan and Claypool).
During the long career in medical genetics, Professor Kumar has engaged in undergraduate (MB and BSc) and postgraduate teaching (MSc, MD & PhD). He has organized a number of national and international professional conferences and educational seminars. These have been widely acknowledged and appreciated at all professional levels. He founded and leads the 'Indo-UK Genetic Education Forum'. He has initiated and leads an international genetics & genomics teaching and training program in Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America through educational seminars and establishing professional networks of joint partnership.
He is passionate for the applications of genomics in medicine, public/population health and biotechnology, particularly in developing countries. He is actively involved in discussion and collaboration for raising awareness and promoting genetics/ genomics for improved healthcare and socio-economic benefits in the emerging economies of the developing world. He is closely associated as one of the advisors for the World Health Orgnaization project ' Grand Challenges of Genomics in Developing Countries.'
