Dr. Yadav’s research focus is to identify genomic damage in DNA repair genes in prostate cancer. DNA is highly vulnerable to chemical modifications, which can cause several types of DNA lesions, such as double-strand DNA breaks, base loss, or base modification. These lesions can occur endogenously or because of exposure to environmental toxins. Cells have thus evolved a series of mechanisms tailored to maintaining genomic integrity Dr. Yadav provided evidence that DNA repair polymerase such as POLK, often somatically mutated in prostate cancer and some of these mutations affect enzyme activity, catalytic efficiency, or the fidelity of DNA synthesis (Yadav et al., 2015). Dr. Yadav recently found that the DNA repairome was somatically mutated in all prostate tumors tested, Dr. Yadav further observed that the well-known difference in prostate cancer incidence and mortality between African Americans and Caucasians may have a genetic basis, specifically involving the DNA repairome (Yadav et al., 2020).
Dr. Yadav has Also presented her findings at various national and international scientific meetings where she received numerous awards including, Best poster award Tulane Research Days (2019), Southern American Federation of Medical (SA FMR) trainee Award (2018), a Southern Society of Clinical Investigation (SSCI-YIF) travel Award (2018), and a travel award with the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) (2017). In addition to having earned appreciation for her work from various eminent scientists as well as various international travel awards for scientific meetings, she also received a Tulane matching fund grant for her study based on “Role of trans-lesion DNA synthesis (TLS) by DNA Polymerase Kappa Somatic Variants found in Prostate Cancer.
Recent Publications
- Santosh Yadav, Anbalagan M, Baddoo M, Chellamuthu VK, Mukhopadhyay S, Woods C, Jiang W, Moroz K, Flemington EK, Makridakis N (2020). Somatic mutations in the DNA repairome in prostate cancers in African Americans and Caucasians. Oncogene. 2020 Apr 16.
- Santosh Yadav, Mukhopadhyay S., Muralidhran Anbalagan and Makridakis N. (2015). Somatic Mutations in Catalytic Core of POLK Reported in Prostate Cancer Alter Translesion DNA Synthesis. Human Mutations (Vol 36 pages 873-880).
- Santosh Yadav, Anbalagan M, Shi Y, Wang F and Wang H. (2013). Arsenic inhibits the adipogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells by down-regulating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma and CCAAT enhancer-binding proteins. Toxicology In Vitro Feb; 27(1):211-9.
- Santosh Yadav, Shi Y, Wang F and Wang H. (2010). Arsenite induces apoptosis in human mesenchymal stem cells by altering Bcl-2 family proteins and by activating intrinsic pathway. Toxcol. Appl. Pharmacol. (1;244(3):263-72).
- Santosh Yadav, Shi Y and Wang H. (2010). IL-16 Effects on A549 Lung Epithelia Cells: Any Dependence on a CD9 ‘Receptor’?” Journal of Immunotoxicol (Jul-Sep; 7(3):183-93.
Degrees
MSc in Microbiolgy and PhD in Environmental Science (Asbestos Induced Genotoixity)
Areas of Expertise
DNA repair polymerases, Genomic instability, Asbestos Toxicity, Arsenic Toxicity, and Cancer Genomics.