Harish Bharambe, PhD

I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from the Government College of Pharmacy, Amravati, India and later went to the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Hajipur, India to obtain Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. For the master’s dissertation project, I worked at the UM-DAE Center for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Mumbai with Dr. Jacinta D’Souza and Prof. Deepak Mathur from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. There, I studied the effect of intense ultrashort laser pulses on DNA and identified the unique mechanism of DNA damage induced by this non-ionizing laser through the involvement of low energy electrons and free radicals.Thereafter, I joined the Advanced Center for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer-Tata Memorial Center, Mumbai for PhD in the Neuro-Oncology lab with Prof. Neelam V. Shirsat. My work focused on elucidating the functional role of microRNAs in the pathogenesis of medulloblastoma, a pediatric brain tumor. I also contributed to the projects studying the functional role of genes like DDX3X, ARID1B,SMARCA4 and CRX in medulloblastoma pathogenesis, which are known to be mutated or deregulated in medulloblastoma subgroups. I am currently working at Moffitt Cancer Center with Dr. Antonio Amelio in the Department of Tumor Biology as a Postdoctoral fellow. Here, we are investigating the molecular mechanisms governing the ability of salivary mucoepidermoid carcinoma cells to enter into a viable drug tolerant state upon challenge with EGFR inhibitors.