Kavitha Gowrishankar
Post-doctoral research associate
oncology
Melanoma Institute Australia
Australia
Biography
Kavi (Kavitha) has worked with Professors Richard Kefford and Helen Rizos from 2009 till 2013 studying mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapy in melanoma, specifically BRAF inhibition. She is skilled in establishing primary cell lines from patient tumors and cell biological analyses of gene expression, including oncogenic signalling pathways. She is currently working with Prof Peter Hersey focussing on improving immunotherapy and is developing assays to study the impact of anti-melanoma drugs/antibodies on immune cells and function. She has contributed to nine scientific publications as part of MIA and her abstract on PD-L1 regulation in melanoma was selected recently for an oral presentation at AACR (2014). Her self described goal is to set up crucial pre-clinical models encompassing patient tumor cell lines, fibroblasts and immune cells, results of which can be extended to personalised medicine for melanoma.
Research Interest
oncology, cancer
