Dr. Pandya's research interests include:
My long-term career aspiration is to focus my research initiatives toward the development of novel, personalized therapies for pediatric solid tumors. my research efforts have been focused on identifying the overlap and connecting the bioinformatics-based large-scale genomic findings with clinically defined prognostic/predictive epigenetic biomarkers, such as EZH2 and its methylated targets in Ewing’s Sarcoma as well as bromodomain-mediated recognition of acetylated epigenetic marks on target genes in Osteosarcoma for preclinical functional validation. Investigating and targeting such therapeutic resistant mechanisms could significantly impact the dismal prognosis we see in pediatric patients with relapsed/recurrent cancers.
Subject Areas:
- Molecular Oncology Experimental Therapeutics
Her research initiatives are focused towards the development of novel, personalized therapies for aggressive pediatric solid tumors through precision medicine. While advancements in pediatric cancer drug development and therapeutic interventions have been on the rise, the prognosis for pediatric patients at high risk for disease progression still remains dismal. Moreover, many questions focused on our understanding mechanisms of resistance in children with relapsed/recurrent cancer still remain unanswered. Therefore, Dr. Pandya's research objective is to identify and investigate novel biomarkers and drug combinations for optimizing therapeutic and clinical outcomes for pediatric patients with aggressive cancers.
