Rama Gullapalli

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My educational background includes a PhD degree in Bioengineering and a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. The primary focus of my work at Penn State was the use of experimental and computational techniques to study diffusional process in cell and synthetic lipid bilayers. Upon completion of my PhD, I moved to the University of Pittsburgh to pursue a residency in the field of Pathology. After my residency, I completed a fellowship in Molecular Genetic Pathology to cement my academic credentials as a practicing clinical molecular pathologist. Throughout my residency and fellowship, I have been the go-to person in the division of Molecular Pathology to solve analytical problems related to large genomic datasets. Prior programming experience obtained during my PhD studies has proved to be invaluable in understanding large dataset problems of next generation sequencing.

My academic career goal is to establish a NIH funded research program with a focus on translational genomic technologies in a clinical setting. More specifically, I am interested in the applied and basic cancer biology of Hepatobiliary cancers which is of relevance to New Mexico due to the high incidence of these cancers in the native American Indian populations. The research in my lab is focused on two different areas of Hepatobiliary cancer biology. 1) We are developing magnetic nanoparticle based separation technology to detect and quantify circulating tumor DNA, RNA and microRNA in Hepatobiliary cancers. 2) We conduct research into the basic mechanisms underlying the biology of Hepatobiliary cancers using a next generation, high-throughput based sequencing approach. My previous educational background in Engineering and Medicine provide me with a unique perspective to solve the challenges related to the clinical implementation of high-throughput, personalized medicine technologies in a clinical setting. The long term goal of my lab is to provide unique solutions to the challenges of personalized health care implementation in cancer diagnostics and therapeutics with a specific focus on Hepatobiliary cancers.