Contents
Principal Investigator
Mythreye Karthikeyan
Mythreye Karthikeyan (K. Mythreye) completed her Bachelors in Science from Delhi University in the Biochemistry honors program and after completing her MS in Biochemistry, received her PhD from UNC Chapel hill in 2005. As a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University (Gerard Blobe mentor) , she was first a recipient of the Susan Komen postdoctoral fellowship and subsequently a recipient of the DOD (OCRP) Postdoctoral Award. She made notable contributions and discoveries on the role of TGFβ coreceptors and cell-ECM interactions in regulating tumor cell behavior in both ovarian and breast cancer models. MK was a 2013 Liz Tilberis Scholar, awarded the same year she joined the faculty of University of South Carolina, Columbia, in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as a tenure-track Assistant Professor (2013). She received tenure and promotion in the Summer of 2019.
MK is currently a Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Graduate Faculty and Co-director of the TMS T32 and a Scientist Member of the Cancer Cell biology Program at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center. Email: mythreye@uab.edu and Office ph: 205-934-2746 CV and publications
CURRENT
Graduate Students
Alex Seok Choi
Alex Choi completed his BS in Exercise Science from University of South Carolina before joining University of South Carolina’s Chemistry Biochemistry graduate program. He joined Mythreye’s lab in Fall 2017. Since Spring 2020 he has transferred into UAB’s Graduate Biomedical Science program. His main interest is understanding the role of Proteoglycan coreceptors particularly betaglycan in ovarian cancer focusing particularly on the mechanisms and impact of different GAG modifications on betaglycan in the tumor microenvironment. His main discovery is the identification of modified betaglycan in ovarian cancer. He is currently examining the impact of this modification on receptor shedding, TGFb signaling and biology in ovarian cancer. Publications
Resha Rajkarnikar
Resha completed her BS in Biochemistry from University of New Mexico (UNM). Previously, Resha worked as a lab technician in Dr. Eric Prossnitz’s lab at UNM, where her projects focused on metabolism in obesity and diabetes. To pursue her interest in cancer biology, she joined the Graduate Biomedical science program at UAB (P3 theme) in 2021 and joined Mythreye’s lab in 2022. She is currently exploring novel protein targets that can play important role in anoikis resistance and metastasis of ovarian cancer.
Emily Page
Emily completed her BS in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in 2020. She then completed a NIH- funded Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) with Dr. Brittany Lasseigne at UAB before joining the Graduate Biomedical Sciences program under the Genetics, Genomics, and Bioinformatics theme in 2021. She joined Mythreye’s lab as the first hybrid — computational biology and bench/ wet lab research graduate student in May of 2022.
Post Doctoral Fellows and Researchers.
Mehri completed her clinical/medical degree from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran. She joined Mythreye’s lab in Spring 2019 and since then has been primarily examining stress adaptation mechanisms in ovarian cancer. Her two main projects are 1) defining roles for specific lncRNA’s and 2) developing novel in vitro models for studying emergent cell behavior in ovarian cancer specific stress adaptation scenarios.
Asha Kumari Ph.D ( Post Doctoral Fellow)
Asha completed her Ph.D from Banaras Hindu University, India in 2018. She worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at UCSD till June 2020, before joining the lab. Her research interest includes understanding the relationship between aging and angiogenesis during cancer progression . Asha uses aging models to mimic post menopausal onset of ovarian cancer along with molecular and cellular tools to address this issue.
Wade Barton M.D (Gynecology Oncology fellow)
Wade is a first year Gynecology Oncology Fellow who completed his Doctorate of Pharmacy (PharmD) at the University of Kentucky, followed by a Doctorate of Medicine (MD) at the University of Louisville. After this, he completed his Ob/Gyn Residency at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. During his one year research experience, his work will focus on targeted therapies for ovarian cancer metastasis.
Liz Q Macias Ph.D (Senior Researcher)
Liz is a researcher who obtained her MS and PhD from CINVESTAV-IPN in Mexico City and has subsequently worked in diverse research areas and multiple mouse models with prior employment at Emory and UAB.
Select Alumni
Kevin Tabury ( Doctoral 2018-2022) Scientist, SCK-CEN, Belgian Nuclear Research Center
Zainab Shonibare ( Doctoral 2017-2022). Post Doctoral Researcher, Yale School of medicine
Ben Horst ( Doctoral 2017-2022) Scientist, STC biologics Inc. Boston MA
Archana Varadaraj ( pdfellow 2013-2016). Tenure Track Faculty Northern Arizona University
Priyanka Singh (pdfellow 2015-2018). Research Scholar University of Michigan
Kathleen O’ Connell (pdfellow 2016-2017) California State University, Instructional Faculty
Lauren Vaughn ( pdfellow 2018-2019) University of South Carolina , Instructional Faculty
Laura M Jenkins ( Lane) (Doctoral 2014-2019) Program Coordinator, SC DHEC
Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay ( MS ) PhD program University of South Carolina
Pratik Patel (Research Technician) Quality Specialist at KBI Biopharma. Durham, NC
Carly Lancaster (Undergrad researcher) PhD program Emory University
John Caleb Snider (Undergrad research). PhD program Vanderbilt University
Calen Raulerson (Undregrad research) MS program in Bioengineering
Juliet Joseph (Undergrad research) MD Program South Carolina
Nick Lenze (Undergrad research) MD Program UNC Chapel Hill
