Shalini S. Yadav

About Shalini S. Yadav

• Growing clinical evidence suggests that a majority of cancer patients present with “intratumoral heterogeneity”—that is, not only do tumors at one site in their body differ from those at another, there are wide genetic variations even in the individual cancerous cells of a single tumor. This genetic diversity in a tumor allows it to develop resistance to drugs, leading to cancer progression and spread.
• Dr. Shalini Singh Yadav will study intratumoral heterogeneity in prostate cancer patients to identify the precise genetic events that lead to metastases.
• She will study prostate cancer patient biopsy tissue specimens taken from various regions of the prostate and distant metastatic sites in lymph nodes, brain and bone.
• She will assess the genetic alterations in individual cells in these biopsy specimens to identify the changes that drive cancer progression and metastatic spread.
• Dr. Yadav will also perform matched-paired analysis, i.e., cancer cells will be compared with adjacent normal tissues to identify the complex genomic changes that occur in each patient through various phases of the disease cycle, as well as identifying the complex interaction of cancer cells with their microenvironment.
• Patients will be followed to study disease recurrence and aggressiveness. These studies will generate leads for the differentiation of indolent prostate cancers from the ones that are aggressive.

What this means for patients: Dr. Shalini Yadav’s work may identify genetic events that differentiate aggressive prostate cancer (that holds potential to spread and kill patients) from indolent disease, that does not pose a threat to patients. These results will potentially form the basis for the development on a diagnostic test that will improve selection of patients who will benefit from prostate cancer therapy.