Pradeep Chaluvally-Raghavan: Curious about Cancer

Instructor, Department of Systems Biology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Age: 38

| 3 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
3:00
Share

KANG JIN JEONGGrowing up in a small village in India, “I was really passionate to know why things work,” recalls Pradeep Chaluvally-Raghavan. “Very silly and very basic questions” like: Why do plants grow? In college, his questions became more focused. “I wanted to study in a higher-resolution manner why living beings are growing and what kind of mechanism is regulating the growth of the cell,” Chaluvally-Raghavan says. “Then I was really interested to learn more about cancer, because cancer is a kind of unlimited growth.”

After obtaining undergraduate and master’s degrees in biology, he began his PhD work in the lab of Girija Kuttan at the Amala Cancer Research Center of the University of Calicut in India’s Kerala state. There, he began exploring the role of the NF-κB transcription factor and proinflammatory cytokines in the metastasis of melanoma using mouse models, screening for natural compounds that might help treat the cancer. He discovered, for example, that piperine, the molecule that gives black pepper its punch, inhibited metastasis in vitro.1

After earning his PhD, Chaluvally-Raghavan dove even deeper into cancer research in the lab of Yosef Yarden at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where he developed a 3-D cell culture model to study the HER2 oncogene, which is overexpressed ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Keywords

Meet the Author

  • Jef Akst

    Jef Akst was managing editor of The Scientist, where she started as an intern in 2009 after receiving a master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses.

Published In

Share
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Enhancing Therapeutic Antibody Discovery with Cross-Platform Workflows

Enhancing Therapeutic Antibody Discovery with Cross-Platform Workflows

sartorius logo
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo

Products

Photo of a researcher overseeing large scale production processes in a laboratory.

Scaling Lentiviral Vector Manufacturing for Optimal Productivity

Thermo Fisher Logo
Collage-style urban graphic of wastewater surveillance and treatment

Putting Pathogens to the Test with Wastewater Surveillance

An illustration of an mRNA molecule in front of a multicolored background.

Generating High-Quality mRNA for In Vivo Delivery with lipid nanoparticles

Thermo Fisher Logo
Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide