Dr. Savita Sankar

Dr. Savita Sankar
Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Biography

Dr. Sankar has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Washington University, School of Medicine in St. Louis. Her post-doctoral research focused on understanding mechanisms of transcriptional and epigenetic regulations that drive normal development using stem cells as a model and that drive oncogenesis in pediatric high-grade gliomas and in medullobastoma brain tumors. Her PhD thesis research was focused on elucidating mechanisms of transcriptional and epigenetic control by a chromosomal translocation-derived fusion oncoprotein, EWS/FLI, in a pediatric malignancy called Ewing sarcoma utilizing state-of-the art molecular biology techniques like RNA-seq and ChIP-seq. Dr. Sankar characterized the mechanistic role of an epigenetic protein LSD1 in EWS/FLI-mediated gene activation and gene repression and developed a novel reversible LSD1 inhibitor in collaboration with the Center for Investigational Therapeutics at the Huntsman Cancer Institute as a targeted therapeutic agent for Ewing sarcoma patients. Dr. Sankar has authored several first author and co-author publications and has extensive experience in reviewing research articles. She has over ten years of continuous work experience in the field on molecular & cellular biology and oncology. Dr. Sankar is the editorial board member for International Journal of Oncotherapy and is a reviewer for several journals including, MJD, MBOC, MIB, BMC-Biology, Development, Stem cells, BBMG, IAM, IMED, JCT, MCBI and OMICS Cancer Group. Dr. Sankar is a member of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR). Dr. Sankar has received clinical and translational research training from the prestigious HHMI-Med to Grad program at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

Research Interest

My research interests include understanding the epigenome of cells during normal development and comparing it to the dysregulated epigenome of cancer cells and various human genetic disorders. The overarching goal of my research is to use the knowledge gained from these studies towards developing new and effective targeted therapies for cancer and genetic disorders.