Education

Biography

Prasun Mishra, MSc, PhD (Ex-Genentech, Ex-NCI/NIH) is the founder and CEO of Agility Pharmaceuticals, an artificial intelligence (AI) driven pharmaceutical company committed to revolutionizing drug discovery through Big Data, Robotics and pioneering the AI-driven pharmaceutical industry. He is also founding president and CEO of American Association for Precision Medicine (AAPM), a professional organization dedicated to advancing the field of precision medicine through research, education, communication, and collaboration to foster new medical breakthroughs. He is best known for discovering the role for noncoding RNA in drug resistance and pharmacogenomics. Moreover, his passion for drug development and precision medicine has led to identification of new drug targets, biomarkers, companion diagnostics, and mechanisms of action/resistance of both new and established drugs, which has facilitated development of rational drug combinations in the clinic. While at Genentech, besides translational research, he participated in discovery project teams at various stages. He was instrumental in establishing robotic automation (robotization) driven cell based phenotypic screening capabilities and hit to lead identification efforts within Genentech. His research work has been recognized globally by numerous awards and honors for his seminal contributions to the emerging fields of Precision Medicine, Pharmacogenomics, Stem Cell Biology as well as Cancer Biology & Therapy. In addition to his professional commitments, Dr. Mishra also gives back to his local biotech community by serving as an advisor to several companies in the San Francisco Bay Area to advance their R&D strategy. Notably, he also serves as a mentor and advisor to startup accelerators such as IndieBio and California Life Sciences Association, to help grow California’s life sciences innovation ecosystem. Moreover, discoveries lead by Dr. Mishra and his teams have contributed to the development of new and viable strategies of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of patients in the clinic.

Research Interest

• Oncology, inflammation, fibrosis and aging
• Stem cells, tumor microenvironment
• Drug discovery and development
• Genetics, cancer genomics and bioinformatics

Scientific Activities

Professional Experience

Other Activities

• Advisor: California Life Sciences Association (FAST advisory program), IndieBio and OncoTelligent. Mentor LinkedIn, Entrepreneurship and science & technology.
• Ad-hoc reviewer: Nature, PNAS, J Clin Invest, Cancer Res, Clin Cancer Res, Human Mutation, Cancer Cell Int, Pharmacogenomics, PCMR, Stem Cells Int, J Invest Dermatol, Mol Cancer, Mol Carcinog, J Hematol Oncol, BMC Genetics, PLOS and others.
• Editorial board memberships: Medical Sciences, Cancer & Clin Res, J Cancer Science & Res, WJ Stem Cells, Dataset Papers in Pharmacology, Dataset Papers in Biology, WJ Gastrointest Oncology; Current/past memberships: NYAS, AACR, AAAS, ASBMB, and Nature Reader Panel.
• NIH intramural services: Involved in organizing, coordinating and judging (chief judge/lead judge/judge) FARE award committees, NIH graduate student festivals, NIH research festivals, NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars, MD/PhD Partnership, and the Wellcome Trust programs.

Honors and Awards

Publications

1. Gill P, Bhattacharyya S, McCullough S, Dweep H, Mishra PJ, Luo C, Letzig L, James L (2017), MicroRNA regulation of CYP 1A2, CYP3A4 and CYP2E1 expression in acetaminophentoxicity, Scientific Reports – Nature, in press.
2. Mishra PJ, Mishra P and Merlino G (2016) Integrated genomics identifies miR-32/MCL-1 pathway as a critical driver of melanomagenesis: Implications for miR-replacement and combination therapy, PLOS One 11(11):e0165102.
3. Bansal N, Mishra PJ, Stein M, DiPaola RS, Bertino JR (2015) Axl receptor tyrosine kinase is up-regulated in metformin resistant prostate cancer cells. Oncotarget, 2015;6(17):15321-31.
4. Balakumaran A, Mishra PJ,Pawelczyk E,Yoshizawa S, Sworder BJ, Cherman N, Kuznetsov SA, Bianco P, Giri N, Savage SA, Merlino G, Dunbar  CE, Young N, Alter BP, Robey PH (2015), Bone marrow skeletal stem/progenitor cell defects in patients with dyskeratosiscongenita, a disorder of telomere maintenance, Blood, 2015 Jan 29;125(5):793-802.
5. Sworder B*, Yoshizawaa S*Mishra PJ* (*first three authors contributed equally), Cherman N, Kuznetsova SA, Merlino G, Balakumaran A and Robey PG (2015), Molecular profile of clonal strains of human skeletal stem/progenitor cells with different potencies, Stem Cell Research, 02/2015; 9.
6. Mishra PJ, Ha L, Rieker J,SviderskayaEV, Bennett DC, OberstMD, Kelly K and,Merlino G.(2010) Dissection of RAS downstream pathways in melanomagenesis: a role for Ral in transformation, Oncogene, Apr 22;29(16):2449-56.
7. Mishra PJ, Song B, Mishra PJ, Wang Y, Humeniuk R, Banerjee D, Merlino G, Ju J, Bertino JR (2009) MiR-24 tumor suppressor activity is regulated independent of p53 and through a target site polymorphism, PLoS One, 2009 Dec 24;4(12):e8445.
8. Mishra PJ, Menon LG, Mishra P,Mayer-Kuckuk P, Bertino JR, Banerjee D (2009) Translational modulation of proteins expressed from bicistronic vectors, Mol Imaging, 8(6):305-18.
9. Mishra PJand Merlino G (2009) MicroRNA reexpression as differentiation therapy in cancer, Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), 2009 Aug; 119(8):2119-23.
10. Mishra PJ&Bertino J (2009) MicroRNA polymorphisms: The future of pharmacogenomics, molecularepidemiology and individualizedmedicine. Pharmacogenomics, v10(3):399-416.
11. Mishra, P*, Mishra, PJ*(*contributed equally), Humeniuk, R, Medina, DJ, Alexe, G, Mesirov, JP, Ganesan, S, Glod, JW and Banerjee, D (2008) Carcinoma-associated fibroblast-like differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells.Cancer Research (CR), 68, 4331-9.
12. Mishra PJ, Humeniuk R, Mishra P, Longo GSA, Banerjee D, Bertino JR (2007) A polymorphism at the microRNA binding site in the dihydrofolate reductase gene leads to methotrexate resistance, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA (PNAS), vol.104,33, 13513-18.
13. Ramasubbu N, Ragunath C, Mishra PJ (2003), Probing the role of a mobile loop in substrate binding and enzyme activity of human salivary amylase: structural studies on the loop-deleted mutant enzyme, Journal of Molecular biology, v325: 1061–1076.