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Faculty Detail    
Name SOORYANARAYANA VARAMBALLY
Professor
 
Campus Address WTI 420B Zip 3300
Phone  (205) 996-1653
E-mail  soorya@uab.edu
Other websites Linkeidn
Google Scholar
UALCAN-Cancer portal
Publications
     

Certifications
MBAEE- Ross School of Business, University of Michigan  2009 


Faculty Appointment(s)
Appointment Type Department Division Rank
Center  Comprehensive Cancer Center  Comprehensive Cancer Center Professor
Center  Ctr for Clinical & Translational Sci  Ctr for Clinical & Translational Sci Professor
Center  Informatics Institute  Informatics Institute Professor
Primary  Joint Pathology  Molecular & Cellular Pathology Professor
Center  Nephrology Research & Training Center  Nephrology Research & Training Center Professor

Graduate Biomedical Sciences Affiliations
Cancer Biology 
Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics 

Biographical Sketch 
Dr. Varambally, MS, Ph.D, MBA, is a Professor of Pathology and Senior Scientist at the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB. He is also an adjunct faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kasturba Medical College, MAHE, both at Manipal and Mangalore, India. Dr. Varambally's groups research interest include understanding the molecular basis of cancer. To understand this, his group uses multiple approach including Cancer Genomics, Bioinformatics, Biomarker Discovery, Integrative Cancer Research. His group also works in the area of therapeutic targeting. His investigations led to the identification of role, and regulation of histone methyltransferases in multiple cancers and understanding the transcription factor ERG biology in prostate cancer. He has published/co-authored over 160 manuscripts, many of them highly cited and with total citations of over 45,000. His group developed a popular public cancer data analyses web-portal "UALCAN" (you all can!) https://ualcan.path.uab.edu, which has been visited over 1,300,000 times by researchers from over 100 countries since its release in 2017 and related manuscripts are cited over 5,000 times. Recently, Dr. Varambally's group has released, unique and free cancer data analysis App, "UALCAN Mobile" for mobile devices and tablets. The app can be downloaded at: Google Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.uab.path.ualcan&pli=1 and at App store https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ualcan-mobile/id6450547634



Research/Clinical Interest
Title
Cancer molecular genetics, Cancer Biomarker Discovery, Cancer Biology and Therapeutic Targeting
Description
Cancer Genomics, Bioinformatics, Proteomics, Biomarker Discovery, Integrative Cancer Research and Therapeutic Targeting.

Selected Publications 
Publication PUBMEDID
Varambally S, Cao Q, Mani RS, Shankar S, Wang X, Ateeq B, Laxman B, Cao X, Jing X, Ramnarayanan K, Brenner JC, Yu J, Kim JH, Han B, Tan P, Kumar-Sinha C, Lonigro RJ, Palanisamy N, Maher CA, Chinnaiyan AM. Genomic Loss of microRNA-101 Leads to Overexpression of Histone Methyltransferase EZH2 in Cancer. Science. 2008 Dec 12;322(5908):1695-9. PMCID:PMC2684823.  19008416 
Wang R, Asangani I.A., Chakravarthi B.V.S.K., Ateeq B, Lonigro R.J., Cao Q., Mani R., Camacho D.F., McGregor N., Schumann T.E.W., Jing X., Menawat R., Tomlins S.A, Zheng H., Otte A.P., Mehra R., Siddiqui J., Dhanasekaran S.M., Nyati M.K., Pienta K.J., Palanisamy N., Kunju L.P., Rubin M.A.. Chinnaiyan A.M. and Varambally S. Role of Transcriptional Co-Repressor CtBP1 in Prostate Cancer Progression. Neoplasia. Oct. 2012, 14(10): 905-14.  23097625  
Nam HY, Chandrashekar DS, Kundu A, Shelar S, Kho EY, Sonpavde G, Naik G, Ghatalia P, Livi CB, Varambally S*, Sudarshan S*.Integrative Epigenetic and Gene Expression Analysis of Renal Tumor Progression to Metastasis. Mol Cancer Res. 2019 Jan;17(1):84-96. * Senior Authors.  30131446 
Varambally S, Dhanasekaran SM, Barrette TR, Sanda MG, Ghosh D, Pienta KJ, Sewalt RGAB, Otte AP, Rubin MA, Chinnaiyan AM. The Polycomb Group Protein EZH2 is involved in Prostate Cancer Progression. Nature, (2002) 419:624-9.   11518967 
Varambally S, Yu J, Laxman B, Rhodes DR, Mehra R, Tomlins SA, Shah RB, Chandran U, Monzon FA, Becich MJ, Wei JT, Pienta KJ, Ghosh D, Rubin MA, Chinnaiyan AM. Integrative Genomic and Proteomic Analysis of Prostate Cancer Reveals Signatures of Metastatic Progression. Cancer Cell. 2005 Nov;8(5):393-406.   16286247 
Cao Q, Mani RS, Ateeq B, Dhanasekaran SM, Asangani IA, Prensner JR, Kim JH, Brenner JC, Jing X, Cao X, Wang R, Li Y, Dahiya A, Wang L, Pandhi M, Lonigro RJ, Wu YM, Tomlins SA, Palanisamy N, Qin Z, Yu J, Maher CA, Varambally S.* and Chinnaiyan A.M.* Coordinated Regulation of Polycomb Group Complexes through microRNAs in Cancer. (*senior authors). Cancer Cell. 2011 Aug 16;20(2):187-99. PMCID: PMC3157014  21840484 
Ende Zhao, Tomasz Maj, Ilona Kryczek, Wei Li, Ke Wu, Lili Zhao, Shuang, Wei, Joel Crespo, Shanshan Wan, Linda Vatan, Wojciech Szeliga, Yin Wang, Yan, Liu, Sooryanarayana Varambally, Arul M. Chinnaiyan, Theodore H. Welling, Victor E., Marquez, Jan Kotarski, Yi Zhang, Rebecca Liu, Guobin Wang, Weiping Zou, Cancer mediates effector T cell dysfunction by targeting microRNAs and EZH2 via glycolysis restriction. Nat Immunol. 2016 Jan;17(1):95-103.  26523864 
Beltran H, Prandi D, Mosquera JM, Benelli M, Puca L, Cyrta J, Marotz C, Giannopoulou E, Chakravarthi BV, Varambally S, Tomlins SA, Nanus DM, Tagawa ST, Van Allen EM, Elemento O, Sboner A, Garraway LA, Rubin MA, Demichelis F. Divergent clonal evolution of castration-resistant neuroendocrine prostate cancer. Nat Med. 2016 Mar;22(3):298-305.  26855148 
Wang X, Qiao Y, Asangani IA, Ateeq B, Poliakov A, Cieślik M, Pitchiaya S, Chakravarthi BV, Cao X, Jing X, Wang CX, Apel IJ, Wang R, Tien JC, Juckette KM, Yan W, Jiang H, Wang S, Varambally S, Chinnaiyan AM. Development of Peptidomimetic Inhibitors of the ERG Gene Fusion Product in Prostate Cancer. Cancer Cell. 2017 Apr 10;31(4):532-548.e7.  28344039 
Chandrashekar DS, Bashel B, Balasubramanya SAH, Creighton CJ, Rodriguez IP, Chakravarthi BVSK and Varambally S. UALCAN: A portal for facilitating tumor subgroup gene expression and survival analyses. Neoplasia (New York, N.Y.) 19(8):649-658. August 2017
http://ualcan.path.uab.edu
 
28732212 
Chakravarthi BVSK, Chandrashekar DS, Hodigere Balasubramanya SA, Robinson AD, Carskadon S, Rao U, Gordetsky J, Manne U, Netto GJ, Sudarshan S, Palanisamy N, Varambally S.Wnt receptor Frizzled 8 is a target of ERG in prostate cancer. Prostate. 2018 Dec;78(16):1311-1320.  30051493 
Chakravarthi BVSK, Rodriguez Pena MDC, Agarwal S, Chandrashekar DS, Hodigere Balasubramanya SA, Jabboure FJ, Matoso A, Bivalacqua TJ, Rezaei K, Chaux A, Grizzle WE, Sonpavde G, Gordetsky J, Netto GJ, Varambally S. A Role for De Novo Purine Metabolic Enzyme PAICS in Bladder Cancer Progression. Neoplasia. 2018 Sep;20(9):894-904.  30121007 

Keywords
UALCAN, TCGA, CPTAC, Genomics, Bioinformatics, Proteomics, Biomarker, Integrative Cancer Biology and Therapeutics.