Fellowship - Molecular Pathology

**Fellowship in Molecular Pathology**

Conceptualized in the year 2004 as a philanthropic initiative for the Eastern and North-Eastern

parts of India and the neighboring countries, the Tata Medical Center (TMC) started operations in

Kolkata on May 16, 2011. The hospital is governed by a charitable trust - Tata Medical Centre Trust.

It is an integrated Oncology facility with well-trained professional staff and equipped with modern

facilities and the most contemporary medical equipment. The hospital was designed by Cannon

Design, a renowned architectural firm from North America. It is located on 13 acres of land at New

Town in Kolkata, West Bengal.

The hospital is an integrated Oncology facility with well-trained professional staff and equipped

with modern facilities and contemporary medical equipment. The Hospital, with a capacity of 437

beds, serves all sections of the society, with 75% of the infrastructure earmarked for subsidized

treatment for the underprivileged sections. It provides a wide spectrum of services from diagnosis

and therapy to rehabilitation and palliative support. The Institution’s objective is to excel in service,

Fellow in Molecular Genetics

**About the Department**:
Molecular assays are performed in diverse fields of Medicine, including Oncology, Infectious
diseases, Pharmacogenomics and others, providing personalized medical care to patients. At Tata
Medical Centre, Kolkata, the diagnosis, sub-classification, management, prognostication and
monitoring of treatment response of various hemato-lymphoid malignancies and solid tumors have
been made possible by easy-to-understand and implement, customized panel-based molecular
assays using laboratory developed tests ( LDTs ) & commercially available tests ; aiding in Precision
Medicine. The molecular laboratory is a state of the art facility hosting some of the best equipments
for the assays.

Separate facilities are available for Nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) extraction, Polymerase Chain Reaction
(PCR), Post-PCR process, Sequencing (Sanger sequencing and Next Generation Sequencing), Droplet
Digital PCR (ddPCR) and Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) laboratory, which provide a
comprehensive contamination-free environment and reliable assay results.

The nucleic acid extractions are performed manually by using the Trizol reagent as well as by the
automated instruments; QiaSymphony® SP (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) and QiaCube platforms. Our
Facility has 5 thermal cyclers which are used for performing PCRs in molecular pathology as well as
molecular microbiology: The thermal cyclers available are ThermoFisher® ABI ProFlex, ABI 9700,
ABI Veriti, Bio-Rad® S1000 and Bio-Rad® C1000. The agarose gels run for various PCR & Reverse
transcriptase PCR tests are documented using the BioRad® Gel Doc XR Plus System.

The quality and quantity of the extracted nucleic acids are checked by the NanoDrop 2000
Spectrophotometer, Invitrogen Qubit 3.0 Fluorometer and the Agilent Biotechnology 4200
TapeStation bioanalyzer. The downstream molecular assays are performed only after the samples
pass the required quality / quantity parameters on the above instruments. The department is
supplemented with 06 ThermoFisher Bio-Safety Class-II Cabinets, 10 bio-safety hoods, multiple
Eppendorf refrigerated / non-refrigerated centrifuges and range of eppendorf micro-pipettes.

A variety of Real-Time PCR (RQ-PCR) and Sequencing (NGS) platforms are available in the
Molecular Laboratory; the Real Time PCR instruments being ThermoFisher® ABI 7500,
ThermoFisher® Quant Studio 3.0, Quant Studio 6.0 Qiagen® Rotor-Gene Q and Biorad®
QX200 Digital Droplet PCR. The 4 NGS platforms available at our Sequencing Facility are

ThermoFisher® Ion Torrent PGM, ThermoFisher® Ion GeneStudio S5, Illumina® MiSeq and
Qiagen® GeneReader NGS.

Liquid Biopsy (cell-free DNA) evaluation is performed using the BioRad® QX200 Droplet Digitial
PCR. Various liquid & solid malignancies, are diagnosed, prognosticated and monitored using this
platform.

Major workload of the laboratory encompasses RQ-PCR for _BCR_-_ABL1_ gene fusion transcripts and
- EGFR_ gene mutation analysis.The laboratory handles nearly 4000 molecular assays of all types
annualy, using all the different platforms installed in the molecular laboratory including the Next
Generation Sequencers ( NGS ) equipments.

The HLA laboratory utilizes LifeCodes / LifeScreen Deluxe bead-based Qualitative / Quantitative
immunoassay for detecting IgG antibodies against HLA class I and Class II antigens. This is
performed on the Luminex® 200 Multiplexing instrument.

Molecular Pathology at Tata Medical Center, Kolkata, also facilitates outsourcing services for our
various medical and surgical oncology disciplines for molecular diagnosis of constitutional
syndromes, clinical exome sequencing for rare benign / malignant haematological disorders as
well as germline mutation analysis / genetic counseling services relevant to the clinical profile