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The Wistar Institute appoints two assistant professors
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The Wistar Institute announced the appointments of two assistant professors.
Kavitha Sarma, PhD, will serve as assistant professor in Wistar’s gene expression and regulation program.
Sarma’s research focuses on how long noncoding RNAs — RNA molecules that are copied from DNA but cannot make proteins — regulate gene expression, as well as how their malfunction alters cellular functions and effects epigenomic changes that lead to cancer.
“Kavitha is a gifted molecular biologist whose research complements the innovative cancer research taking place at Wistar,” Dario Altieri, MD, president and CEO of The Wistar Institute, said in a press release. “Her work is at the forefront of understanding the role of [noncoding RNAs] in gene expression and cancer. In the last decade, we’ve just begun to understand the significance and function of [noncoding RNAs] and their tremendous importance to cancer at the molecular level.”
Zachary Schug, PhD, will serve as assistant professor in Wistar’s molecular and cellular oncogenesis program.
Schug’s research is designed to identify alterations in metabolites to understand how these influence the major metabolic cancer cell pathways.
“Cancer metabolism is a hot issue in science and Zachary is an expert in the field,” Altieri said. “His dynamic work understanding the metabolic needs of cancers not only complements Wistar research, but could one day lead to a new class of therapies.”