Abstract
Dr. Dhanasekaran received his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, where he studied signaling pathways involved in ovarian follicular maturation. After completing his postdoctoral studies with Dr. Arnold Ruoho and Dr. Gary Johnson at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, and National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, Denver, Colorado, respectively, Dr. Dhanasekaran joined the faculty of the Fels Institute for Cancer research and Molecular Biology at Temple University, Philadelphia, in 1992. In 2009, he joined the faculty of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, where he holds the position of Professor and Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation Endowed Chair in Cancer Research as well as the Deputy Director for Basic Research of the Peggy and Charles Stephenson Cancer Center. He is also the principal investigator and director of the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Translational Cancer Research. Dr. Dhanasekaran’s research is focused on defining the oncogenic signaling pathways regulated by G proteins and their receptors. He is the first one to show that the gep oncogenes, defined by the activated mutants of Gα12 and Gα13, stimulate the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK)-signaling pathway. In collaboration with Dr. Premkumar Reddy, his laboratory is the first to show that these oncogenic G proteins interact with the JNK-interacting scaffold protein JLP in mediating their oncogenic effects. He has published almost a hundred research articles on several aspects of cell signaling. He has served on several peer-review committees including those of American Heart Association, Department of Defense, and the US National Institutes of Health. He also serves in the peer-review committees of the funding agencies of several other countries such as Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong. In addition to being a member of the editorial boards of several journals, Dr. Dhanasekaran also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Molecular Signaling. His current research focuses on defining novel signaling pathways involved in modulating tumor microenvironment to promote tumorigenesis and tumor progression.