Santosh Patnaik, MD, PhD

The focus of my research group has lately been on the following:

1. Obesity: I have been actively involved in research to define the association between obesity and lung cancer risk, outcomes, and treatment effects. Using better metrics of obesity than BMI, such as radioimaging-based visceral obesity measurement, we have thus attempted to resolve the so-called obesity paradox in lung cancer. Using multiple mouse models of lung cancer, we have tried to understand the biological underpinnings of the effects of obesity on lung cancer.

2. Tumor microenvironment: Through utilization and integration of high-throughput data, I have characterized various aspects of the tumor microenvironment for a variety of cancers. While the facets I have examined are diverse (microbiome, lymphatic invasion, etc.), the overarching desire has been to obtain insights on biological as well as biomarker values in cancer.

3. RNA editing: Significantly important contributions have been the demonstration of differential C>U RNA editing between classically (M1) and alternately (M2) activated human macrophages, and identifications of hitherto unknown RNA editing activities of APOBEC3A, APOBEC3B and APOBEC3G cytidine deaminase enzymes. I actively study the phenomenon of C>U type of RNA editing in human immune cell and cancer transcriptomes, and develop novel techniques for biochemical and bioinformatic analyses of RNA editing.

4. MicroRNAs: The discovery of the association of tumor and circulating microRNA expression with recurrence for early stage non-small lung cancer, which has the potential to affect treatment guidelines for the disease has been a major contribution. I have also characterized the biological roles of many cancer-associated microRNAs. My technology development work for non- invasive microRNA assays of blood has a high value for biomarker assays for specific diseases and conditions.