Leadership team

Medical And Scientific Advisory Board

Wendy Chung

Medical & Scientific Advisor

Precision Medicine Resource Leader-Irving Institute
Medical Director: Columbia Genetic Counseling Graduate Program

Wendy Chung, M.D., Ph.D. is a clinical and molecular geneticist and the Kennedy Family Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine. She received her B.A. in biochemistry and economics from Cornell University, her M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, and her Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University in genetics. Dr. Chung directs NIH funded research programs in human genetics of birth defects including congenital diaphragmatic hernia, congenital heart disease, and esophageal atresia, autism, neurodevelopmental disorders, pulmonary hypertension, cardiomyopathy, obesity, diabetes, and breast cancer. She leads the Precision Medicine Resource in the Irving Institute at Columbia University.

Dr. Scott Demarest

Dr. Scott Demarest

Medical & Scientific Advisor

Dr. Scott Demarest is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neurology and the Adult & Child Consortium for Health Outcomes Research and Delivery Science. He is board certified in Neurology with special qualification in Child Neurology as well as Epilepsy. His clinical practice and research focus on the evaluation and treatment of early-life genetic epilepsies. This includes clinical trials for novel therapies for epilepsy, conduct of natural history studies and the development of better outcome measures for early life epilepsies. He received a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of Texas at Austin before going on to medical school at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He completed his residency in Pediatrics and child neurology at Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC and his Epilepsy fellowship at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

indu Navar

Founder, EverythingALS

Over the past 20 years, Indu has experience in being Co-founder/CEO of software companies and taking them through successful exits, strategic partnerships and M&A. She is an Investor and Strategic Advisor in many startups. She is currently CEO and Founder of EverythingALS. She co-founded geek.ly and Xendota. Prior to that, Indu was Managing Director at Woodside Capital Partners where she advised software companies on strategic financing transactions and M&A. She was Founder and CEO of Serus Corporation, provider of SAAS platform for companies with outsourced manufacturing. The company was acquired by E2OPEN (Nasdaq:EOPN). Prior to Serus, Indu has been on the ground floor of several successful technology companies including Healtheon (WebMD), Silicon Graphics, Black and White Software (Segue). She started her career at NASA in Moffett Field, California. Indu has B.S Electrical Engineering from Bangalore University, India and M.S. in Computer Science from California State University, Chico.

The Project 8p Foundation (Project 8p) was created in 2018 to:

  • Accelerate future treatments, not only for 8p, but potentially for other chromosome-wide diseases as well.
  • Lead with knowledge from patients. Currently, there is no cure for 8p disorders, nor is there a standard course of treatment.

The Project 8p Foundation (Project 8p) was created in 2018 to:

  • Raise transformative funding for pioneering scientific research into treatments for a complex, rare disease involving 250+ affected genes on the short arm of the 8 th chromosome (8p). Rearrangements of these genes causes significant abnormalities to the entire neurological system, thus all organs and functions of the body– with variance in cognitive functions, gross motor skills, social development and other challenges during infancy, and throughout life;
  • Empower a unified community of 8p patients and their families so they can have meaningful lives today; and
  • Accelerate future treatments, not only for 8p, but potentially for other chromosome-wide diseases as well.