Megha Padi, PhD

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Assistant Professor, Cellular & Molecular Medicine
Biography
Megha Padi earned her B.S. degrees in Physics and Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. in theoretical physics at Harvard University. She then completed postdoctoral training with John Quackenbush at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in computational genomics and network biology. She joined the University of Arizona in 2018 as an Assistant Professor in Molecular and Cellular Biology, and the Director of the Bioinformatics Shared Resource at the University of Arizona Cancer Center.
Cancer Focus
My group develops computational approaches for integrating genomic “Big Data” in order to characterize how cellular networks are altered in cancer. Ultimately, we want to unite network science with genomics and build mechanistic models that can explain the heterogeneity in disease progression and drug response. Currently, our research focuses on (i) understanding the way Merkel cell polyomavirus rewires host regulatory networks to induce skin cancer, and (ii) creating context-specific models of drug response in cancer cell lines.
Selected Publications
Lance, P., T. Pearson, G. J Caporaso, M. Yellowhair, N. A. Bokulich, M. Padi, D. J. Roe, B. C. Wertheim, M. Linhart, J. A. Martinez, et al., "Effects of ursodeoxycholic acid on the gut microbiome and colorectal adenoma development.", Cancer Med, 2019 Jan 16. PMID: 30652422
Padi, M., and J. Quackenbush, "Detecting phenotype-driven transitions in regulatory network structure.", NPJ Syst Biol Appl, vol. 4, pp. 16, 2018. PMCID: PMC5908977 PMID: 29707235
Berrios, C., M. Padi, M. A. Keibler, D. Esther Park, V. Molla, J. Cheng, S. Mi Lee, G. Stephanopoulos, J. Quackenbush, and J. A. DeCaprio, "Merkel Cell Polyomavirus Small T Antigen Promotes Pro-Glycolytic Metabolic Perturbations Required for Transformation.", PLoS Pathog, vol. 12, issue 11, pp. e1006020, 2016 Nov. PMCID: PMC5120958 PMID: 27880818
Padi, M., and J. Quackenbush, "Integrating transcriptional and protein interaction networks to prioritize condition-specific master regulators.", BMC Syst Biol, vol. 9, pp. 80, 2015 Nov 14. PMCID: PMC4650867 PMID: 26576632
Rozenblatt-Rosen, O., R. C. Deo, M. Padi, G. Adelmant, M. A. Calderwood, T. Rolland, M. Grace, A. Dricot, M. Askenazi, M. Tavares, et al., "Interpreting cancer genomes using systematic host network perturbations by tumour virus proteins.", Nature, vol. 487, issue 7408, pp. 491-5, 2012 Jul 26. PMCID: PMC3408847 PMID: 22810586