Deepa Sampath, Ph.D. University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Deepa Sampath is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Experimental Therapeutics at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. She has been a member of the faculty of MD Anderson Cancer Center since 2007. During her post-doctoral training she focused on the cellular and molecular response of acute myelogenous leukemia to nucleoside analogues, a class of chemotherapeutic drugs active in the treatment of this disease. She received the AACR-Glaxo-Wellcome Oncology Clinical Research Scholar award in 1997 and the AACR-AFLAC Scholar in Training Award in 2001 for this work. Since 2004, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) has been the focus of her career. She initially focused on the role of tumor suppressor genes in regulating cell death in response to therapeutic regimens that targeted DNA repair. Her career is marked by close collaboration with clinicians.

Currently, she is studying the role of epigenetics in the patho-physiology of CLL and developing mechanistic rationales for novel therapeutics that utilize epigenetic mechanisms to potentially eradicate CLL.