Geraldine Raja, PhD

Biography

Dr. Geraldine Raja received her PhD in Cancer Biology from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. During her doctoral studies, Dr. Raja focused on identifying novel therapeutic targets for metastatic breast cancer. Most standard-of-care treatments focus on eliminating the bulk of the differentiated tumors but are completely inept at eliminating recalcitrant cancer cells that have undergone epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and acquired stem-like properties (cancer stem cells, CSCs). These cells have been implicated in tumor metastasis, recurrence and subsequent chemoresistance. Therefore, her doctoral studies were dedicated to discovering and validating novel druggable targets that could be specifically inhibited to hamper EMT and destroy CSCs thus ensuring that when used in combination with standard-of-care drugs, the tumor as a whole will be eradicated without remnant traces of recalcitrant CSCs.

As the tumor is composed of more than just the cancer cells, Dr. Raja pursued her postdoctoral training at Mayo Clinic to gain an understanding of the tumor immune landscape that influences tumor development and response to treatment. Her work was focused on developing cancer vaccines and immunotherapies for gynecological cancers. Currently, Dr. Raja works on discovering and validating radiation-induced targets to develop novel combination therapies. An insight into how the tumor evades immune sentinels and/or therapeutic agents deployed to eliminate them would be a valuable asset in tailoring strategies and treatment regimens to treat cancer. These scientific inquiries utilize interdisciplinary approaches and cutting-edge technologies for studying the components of the tumor microenvironment such as the multitudes of immune cells, cancer associated fibroblasts, and the secretome that augments tumor growth and primes metastatic niches. The overarching goal is to dissect and comprehend tumor microenvironmental interactions and responses to treatment as well as design innovative treatment paradigms to defeat cancer.