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4th Annual CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Following her postodoctoral fellowship, she was promoted to Research Assistant Professor at Duke University Medical School. In 2013 she joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Drug Discovery Biomedical Sciences department at the University of South Carolina as a tenure track assistant professor. In June 2018 Dr. Karthikeyan earned a secondary appointment as associate professor of Biomedical Engineering, in the USC College of Engineering. In June 2019, she received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor. While at USC, she won the “Breakthrough Rising Star Mythreye Karthikeyan, PhD Award” in 2019. Dr. Karthikeyan’s research focuses on defining how tumor cells send signals to surrounding cells and how tumors respond to cues from their surroundings to promote tumor growth and metastasis. Her lab’s overall goal is to identify key signaling pathways that are tumor specific and also to target the same. Her USC lab’s most recent efforts focused on ovarian cancer — the deadliest of gynecological malignancies facing women, with a 5-year survival rate (for advanced stage patients with marked metastatic spread) still remaining at less than 25%. Her lab discovered tumor specific signaling pathways in gynecological cancers that are amenable to targeted therapeutics. She hopes to advance the ability to target such pathways to the clinic. Karthikeyan’s lab will be in the Wallace Tumor Institute where she’ll continue working on ovarian cancer metastasis with several of her former USC lab members joining her here at UAB. Throughout her training and independent career, Karthikeyan has published in leading peer-reviewed periodicals/journals in the field of cancer biology (JCI, Cancer Research, Oncogene), and journals in cellular biochemistry and molecular biology (PNAS, JCB, JBC, Nat Communications, Molecular Cell, Molecular Biology of the Cell). She first received funding for her postdoctoral work from the Department of Defense’s Ovarian Cancer Research Program, a fellowship that connected her directly to the challenge of ovarian cancer. In 2013 she was named a Liz Tilberis Scholar by the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance. She received additional support from the Rivkin Foundation, and since 2018 her work is supported by two active National Cancer Institute grants.
16 UAB Pathology 2020 Issue 1
TTP Fair a Success THE 4TH annual TTP Fair and Education Day,
hosted by the lab of X. Long Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., Division Director, Laboratory Medicine, was held on September 14 in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Baptist Convention Center. TTP stands for thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, and is caused by a deficiency of active ADAMTS13, the enzyme responsible for cleaving Von Willebrand Factor (VWF). Dr. Zheng was among the first group of investigators who first discovered and cloned the ADAMTS13 enzyme. The Zheng Lab has made many major contributions Researchers (above) in Dr. Zheng's lab to the underspeak with patients at the TTP Fair. standing of the (below) Dr. X. Long Zheng, event host. structure-function relationship and regulation of ADAMTS13, and is working to develop novel tools for the diagnosis and treatment of TTP. This yearly event is designed to support individuals living with rare acquired and congenital TTP diagnoses and their families, promote awareness to empower patients, families, clinicians, and scientists, build a collaborative and dedicated clinical care network, and help advance scientific understanding and research. It allows for the exchange of up-to-date information regarding the diagnosis, treatment, and management of TTP through educational presentations, and offer a support network between persons with TTP through roundtable discussions. The event saw an increase in registration and attendance from the previous years, with more than half of the attendees new to the event. Apart from local residents, patients and their family members traveled from Texas, North Carolina, and New Jersey attend. The lab would like to thank UAB Pathology, the ReeWynn Foundation, and Baptist Health for their contributions to this event.
