R. Rajesh Singh
R. Rajesh Singh
Assistant Professor
  • :713-792-3957

Department of Hematopathology
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
USA

Education

Degree-Granting Education

Ph.D. in Biochemistry, University of Mysore, Mysore, India, 1997-2002
“Studies on Stability and Folding of a Bowman-Birk Inhibitor from Legumes”

Postgraduate Education
Master of Science (Biochemistry), University of Mysore, Mysore, India, 1994−1996

Undergraduate Education
Bachelor of Science, University of Mysore, Mysore, India, 1991-1994

Biography

Rajesh Singh has a Ph.D in Biochemistry from The University of Mysore, India and Postdoctoral research experience from University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX. He has extensive experience in cancer biology focusing on the deregulated signal transduction pathways in the origin, maintenance and chemoresistance of solid tumors, leukemia and lymphoma. He is an Assistant Professor and Director, Clinical NGS Development in the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at MD Anderson, where he directs the design, validation and implementation of the NGS assays for routine mutational screening of tumors. His current research interest is cancer genomics and precision medicine.

 

Research Interest

Design, validation and clinical implementation of molecular assays and platforms for clinical cancer genomics with special focus on Next Generation Sequencing to facilitate characterization of solid tumors and hematological malignancies for precision medicine. Research interests also specifically include molecular assays and markers for early detection of cancer, tumor heterogeneity, clonal evolution, response to therapy and post-treatment disease monitoring.

 

Professional Activities:

Honors And Awards

  1. 1st Prize, AMGEN Award for Basic Sciences, Trainee Recognition Day, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. AMGEN, 2007
  2. Award for Outstanding productivity, Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center., 2005
  3. Research Fellowship, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, India, 1998−2003
  4. Rank and Merit Scholarship, Bachelor of Science, University of Mysore, Karnataka, India, 1995

 

Publications

Research Articles

  1. Singh RR, Murugan P, Patel L, Voicu H, S-Y Yoo, Majewski T, Mehrotra M, Wani K, Tannir N, Karam J, Jonasch E, Wood C, Creighton CJ, Medeiros LJ, Broaddus R, Tamboli P, Baggerly K, Aldape K, Czerniak B, Luthra R and Sircar K. Intratumoral Morphologic and Molecular Heterogeneity of Rhabdoid Renal Cell Carcinoma: Challenges for Personalized Therapy. Mod Pathol, 2015, 28(9): 1225-1235
  2. Patel KP, Newberry K, Luthra R, Joseph EJ, Sherry PA, Cortes J, Singh RR, Mehrotra M, Routbort MJ, Luthra MG, Taghi M, Santos FPS, Kantarjian HM and Versovstek S. Correlation of mutation profile and response in patients with myelofibrosis treated with ruxolitinib. Blood 2015, 126 (6): 790-797
  3. Roy-Chowdhuri S, Goswami RS, Chen H, Patel KP, Routbort MJ, Singh RR, Broaddus RR, Barkoh BA, Manekia J, Yao H, Medeiros LJ, Staerkel G, Luthra R, Stewart J. Factors affecting the success of next-generation sequencing in cytology specimens. Cancer Cytopathol. 2015 Jul 31 (Epub ahead of print)
  4. Roy-Chowdhuri S, de Melo Gagliato D, Routbort MJ, Patel KP, Singh RR, Broaddus R, Lazar AJ, Sahin A, Alvarez RH, Moulder S, Wheler JJ, Janku F, Gonzalez-Angulo AM, Chavez-MacGregor M, Valero V, Ueno NT, Mills G, Mendelsohn J, Yao H, Aldape K, Luthra R, Meric-Bernstam F. Multigene Clinical Mutational Profiling of Breast Carcinoma Using Next-Generation Sequencing Am J Clin Pathol, 2015 144(5): 713-721
  5. Mehrotra M, Luthra R, Singh RR, Barkoh BA, Galbincea J, Mehta P, Goswami RS, Jabbar KJ, Loghavi S, Medeiros LJ, Verstovsek S, Patel KP. Clinical Validation of a Multipurpose Assay for Detection and Genotyping of CALR Mutations in Myeloproliferative Neoplasms Am J Clin Pathol, 2015 144(5): 746-755
  6. Ok CY, Patel KP, Garcia-Manero G, Routbort MJ, Peng J, Tang G, Goswami M, Young KH, Singh R, Medeiros LJ, Kantarjian HM, Luthra R, Wang SA.TP53 mutation characteristics in therapy-related myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia is similar to de novo diseases. J Hematol Oncol. 2015; 8(1):45.
  7. Jabbar KJ, Luthra R, Patel KP, Singh RR, Goswami R, Aldape KD, Medeiros LJ, Routbort MJ. Comparison of Next-generation Sequencing Mutation Profiling With BRAF and IDH1 Mutation-specific Immunohistochemistry. Am J Surg Pathol,2015; 39, 454- 61
  8. Paniz-Mondolfi A, Singh R, Jour G, Mahmoodi M, Diwan AH, Barkoh BA, Cason R, Huttenbach Y, Benaim G, Galbincea J, Luthra R. Cutaneous carcinosarcoma and the EMT: to transition, or not to transition? That is the question. Virchows Arch , 2015; 466: 359-60
  9. Ok CY, Patel KP, Garcia-Manero G, Routbort MJ, Fu B, Tang G, Goswami M,Singh RR, Kanagal-Shamanna R, Pierce SA, Young KH, Kantarjian HM, Medeiros LJ, Luthra R, Wang SA. Mutational profiling of therapy-relatedmyelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia by next generation sequencing, a comparison with de novo diseases. Leuk Res. 2015,39(3):348-54.
  10. Goswami RS, Patel KP, Singh RR, Meric-Bernstam F, Kopetz ES, Subbiah V, Alvarez RH, Davies MA, Jabbar KJ, Roy-Chowdhuri S,. Lazar AJ, L. J Medeiros LJ, Broaddus RR, Luthra R, Routbort MJ. Hotspot mutation panel testing reveals clonal evolution in a study of 265 paired primary and metastatic tumors. Clin Can Res, 2015; 21, 2644-2651.
  11. Singh RR, Patel KP, Routbort MJ, ALdape K, Lu X, Manekia J, Abraham R, Reddy NG, Barkoh BA, Veliyathu J, Medeiros LJ and Luthra R. Clinical massively parallel next- generation sequencing analysis of 409 cancer-related genes for mutations and copy number variations in solid tumours. Br J Cancer, 2014, 111,2014-2023.
  12. Loghavi S, Zhuang Zuo, Farhad Ravandi, Hagop M Kantarjian, CarlosBueso-Ramos Liping Zhang, Singh RR, Keyur P Patel, L. Jeffrey Medeiros, Francesco Stingo, Mark Routbort, Jorge Cortes, Rajyalakshmi Luthra and Joseph D Khoury Clinical Features Of De Novo Acute Myeloid Leukemia with Concurrent DNMT3A, FLT3 and NPM1 Mutations. J Hematol Oncol. 2014, 7, 74
  13. Mehrotra M, Medeiros J, Luthra R, Sargent RL, Yao H, Barkoh BA, Singh RR, Patel KP. Identification of putative pathogenic microRNA and its downstream targets in anaplastic lymphoma kinase-negative anaplastic large cell lymphoma, Human Pathology, 2014,45, 1995-2005.
  14. Zhang L, Singh RR*, Patel KP, Stingo F, Routbort M, You MJ, Miranda RN, Garcia- Manero G, Kantarjian HM, Medeiros LJ, Luthra R, Khoury JD. BRAFKinase domain mutations are present in a subset of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia with Wild-Type RAS. Am J Hematol, 2014, 89(5):499-04 (*Equal first author).
  15. Luthra R, Patel KP, Reddy NG, Haghshenas V, Routbort MJ, Harmon MA, Barkoh BA, Kanagal-Shamanna R, Ravandi F, Cortes JE, Kantarjian HM, Medeiros LJ and Singh RR. Next Generation Sequencing based Multi-GeneMutational Screen for Acute Myeloid Leukemia using MiSeq: Applicability for Diagnostics and Disease Monitoring. Haematologica, 2014, 99, 465-73.
  16. Portier BP, Kanagal-Shamanna R, Luthra R, Singh RR, Routbort M, Handal B, Reddy N, Barkoh BA, Zuo Z, Medeiros L J, Aldape K and Patel KP. Quantitative Assessment of Mutant Allele Burden in Solid Tumors by Semiconductor Based Next Generation Sequencing. Am J Clin Pathol, 2014, 141, 559-72.
  17. Kanagal-Shamanna R, Portier BP, Singh RR, Routbort M, Aldape KD, Handal B, Rahimi H, Reddy NG, Barkoh BA, Mishra BM, Paladugu AV, Manekia JH, Kalhor N, Chowdhuri RS, Staerkel GA, Medeiros LJ. Luthra R and Patel KP. Next Generation Seqeuncing- Based Mutation Profiling of Solid Tumors Using fine needle aspiration samples: Promises and Challenges for Routine Clinical Diagnostics, Mod Pathology, 2014, 27, 314-27.
  18. Singh RR, Patel KP, Routbort M, Reddy N, Barkoh BA, Handal B, Kanagal-Shamanna R, Medeiros LJ, Aldape K and Luthra R. Clinical Validation of a Next Generation Sequencing Screen for Mutational Hotspots in 46 Cancer-related Genes. J Mol Diagn. 2013; 15(5) 607-22.
  19. Alayed K, Patel KP, Konoplev S, Singh RR, Routbort MJ, Reddy N, Pemmaraju N, Zhang L, Shaikh AA, Aladily TN, Jain N, Luthra R, Jeffrey Medeiros L, Khoury JD. TET2 mutations, myelodysplastic features, and a distinct immunoprofile characterize blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm in the bone marrow. Am J Hematol, 2013, 88 (12) 1055-61.
  20. Paniz-Mondolfi A, Singh R, Jour G, Mahmoodi M, Diwan AH, Barkoh BA, Cason R, Huttenbach Y, Benaim G, Galbincea J, Luthra R. Cutaneous carcinosarcoma: further insights into its mutational landscape through massive parallel genome sequencing. Virchows Arch. 2014, 465 (3) 339-50
  21. Paniz Mondolfi AE, Jour G, Johnson M, Reidy J, Cason RC, Barkoh BA, Benaim G, Singh R, Luthra R. Primary cutaneous carcinosarcoma: insights into its clonal origin and mutational pattern expression analysis through next-generation sequencing. Hum Pathol. 2013, 44(12) 2853-60.
  22. Zhou Y, Fan X, Routbort M, Cameron Yin C, Singh R, Bueso-Ramos C, Thomas DA, Milton DR, Medeiros LJ and Lin P. Absence of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase expression identifies a subset of high-risk adult T-lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma. Mod Pathol. 2013, 26 (10), 1338-45.
  23. Qu C, Liu Y, Kunkalla K, Singh RR, Blonska M, Lin X, Agarwal NK, Vega F. Trimeric G protein-CARMA1 axis links smoothened, the hedgehog receptor transducer, to NF-κB activation in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Blood. 2013 Jun 6,121(23):4718-28.
  24. Kunkalla K, Liu Y, Qu C, Leventaki V, Agarwal NK, Singh RR, Vega F. Functional inhibition of BCL2 is needed to increase the susceptibility to apoptosis to SMO inhibitors in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of germinal center subtype. Ann Hematol. 2013, 92(6):777-87.
  25. Singh RR, Bains A, Patel KP, Rahimi H, Barkoh BA, Paladugu A, Bisrat T, Ravandi- Kashani F, Cortes JE, Kantarjian HM, Medeiros LJ, Luthra R. Detection of high- frequency and novel DNMT3A mutations in acute myeloid leukemia byhigh-resolution melting curve analysis. J Mol Diagn 2012, 14(4):336-45.
  26. Greaves W, Xiao L, Sanchez-Espiridion B, Kunkalla K, Dave KS, Liang CS, Singh RR, Younes A, Medeiros LJ, Vega F. Detection of ABCC1 expression in classical Hodgkin lymphoma is associated with increased risk of treatment failure using standard chemotherapy protocols. J Hematol Oncol 2012, 5:47.
  27. Ramirez E, Singh RR, Kunkalla K, Liu Y, Qu C, Cain C, Multani AS, Lennon PA, Jackacky J, Ho M, Dawud S, Gu J, Yang S, Hu PC, Vega F. Defining causative factors contributing in the activation of hedgehog signaling in diffuse large B-celllymphoma. Leuk Res, 2012, 36(10):1267-73.
  28. Moretti L, Medeiros LJ, Kunkalla K, Williams MD, Singh RR, Vega F. N-terminalPAX8 polyclonal antibody shows cross-reactivity with N-terminal region of PAX5 and is responsible for reports of PAX8 positivity in malignant lymphomas. Mod Pathol, 2012, 25(2):231-6.
  29. Greaves. W.O, Kim.E.J, Singh. RR, Drakos.E, Kunkalla. K, Sánchez-Espiridón. B, Garcia.J.F, Davuluri. R, Medeiros LJ, and Vega.F. Glioma-associated oncogene homologue 3, a hedgehog transcription factor, is highly expressed in Hodgkin and Reed- Sternberg cells of classical Hodgkin lymphoma. Human Pathology, 2011, 42(11):1643- 1652.
  30. Singh RR, Kunkalla K, Qu C, Schlette E, Neelapu SS, Samaniego F, Vega F.ABCG2 is a direct transcriptional target of hedgehog signaling and involved instroma-induced drug tolerance in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Oncogene, 2011,30(49):4874-86.
  31. Drakos E, Singh RR, Rassidakis GZ, Schlette E, Li J, Claret FX, Ford RJ, Vega F, Medeiros LJ. Activation of the p53 pathway by the MDM2 inhibitor nutlin-3aovercomes BCL2 overexpression in a preclinical model of diffuse large B-celllymphoma associated with t(14;18)(q32;q21). Leukemia. 2011, 25, 856-67.
  32. Singh RR, Kim JE, Davuluri Y, Drakos E, Cho-Vega JH, Amin HM, Vega F.Hedgehog signaling pathway is activated in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and contributes to tumor cell survival and proliferation. Leukemia, 2010, 24(5):1025-36.
  33. Kim JE, Singh RR, Cho-Vega JH, Drakos E, Davuluri Y, Khokhar FA, Fayad L, Medeiros LJ, Vega F. Sonic hedgehog signaling proteins and ATP-bindingcassette G2 are aberrantly expressed in diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma. Mod Pathol, 2009, 22, 1312- 20.
  34. Maru DM, Singh RR*, Hannah C, Albarracin CT, Li YX, Abraham R, Romans AM, Yao H, Luthra MG, Anandasabapathy S, Swisher SG, Hofstetter WL, Rashid A, Luthra R. MicroRNA-196a is a potential marker of progression during Barrett's metaplasia-dysplasia-invasive adenocarcinoma sequence in esophagus. Am J Pathol, 2009,174(5):1940-8. (* Equal first author)
  35. Singh RR, Cho-Vega JH, Davuluri Y, Ma S, Kasbidi F, Milito C, Lennon PA, Drakos E, Medeiros LJ, Luthra R, Vega F. Sonic hedgehog signaling pathway is activated in ALK- positive anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Cancer Res, 2009, 69(6):2550-8.
  36. Luthra R, Singh RR, Luthra MG, Li YX, Hannah C, Romans AM, Barkoh BA, Chen SS, Ensor J, Maru DM, Broaddus RR, Rashid A, Albarracin CT. MicroRNA-196a targets annexin A1: a microRNA-mediated mechanism of annexin A1 downregulation in cancers. Oncogene, 2008, 27(52):6667-78.
  37. Vega F, Davuluri Y, Cho-Vega JH, Singh RR, Ma S, Wang RY, Multani AS, Drakos E, Pham LV, Lee YC, Shen L, Ambrus J, Medeiros LJ, Ford RJ. Side Population of a Murine Mantle Cell Lymphoma Model Contains Tumor-Initiating Cells Responsible for Lymphoma Maintenance and Dissemination. J Cell Mol Med, 2010, 14(6B):1532-45.
  38. Molli PR, Singh RR, Lee SW, Kumar R. MTA1-mediated transcriptional repression of BRCA1 tumor suppressor gene. Oncogene, 2008, 27(14):1971-80.
  39. Acconcia F, Barnes CJ, Singh RR, Talukder AH, Kumar R. Phosphorylation-dependent regulation of nuclear localization and functions of integrin-linked kinase. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2007, 104(16):6782-7.
  40. Zhang H*, Singh RR*, Talukder AH, Kumar R. Metastatic tumor antigen 3 is a direct corepressor of the Wnt4 pathway. Genes Dev, 2006, 20(21):2943-8. (*Equal first author)
  41. Singh RR, Kaluarachchi K, Chen M, Rayala SK, Balasenthil S, Ma J, Kumar R. Solution structure and antiestrogenic activity of the unique C-terminal, NR-box motif-containing region of MTA1s. J Biol Chem, 2006, 281(35):25612-21.
  42. Singh RR, Gururaj AE, Vadlamudi RK, Kumar R. 9-cis-retinoic acid up-regulates expression of transcriptional coregulator PELP1, a novel coactivator of the retinoid X receptor alpha pathway. J Biol Chem, 2006, 281(22):15394-404.
  43. Gururaj AE, Singh RR, Rayala SK, Holm C, den Hollander P, Zhang H, Balasenthil S, Talukder AH, Landberg G, Kumar R. MTA1, a transcriptional activator of breast cancer amplified sequence 3. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2006, 103(17):6670-5.
  44. Singh RR, Barnes CJ, Talukder AH, Fuqua SA, Kumar R. Negative regulation of estrogen receptor alpha transactivation functions by LIM domain only 4 protein. Cancer Res, 2005, 65(22):10594-601.
  45. Vadlamudi RK, Manavathi B, Singh RR, Nguyen D, Li F, Kumar R. An essential role of Pak1 phosphorylation of SHARP in Notch signaling. Oncogene, 2005, 24(28):4591-6.
  46. Singh RR, Song C, Yang Z, Kumar R. Nuclear localization and chromatin targets of p21- activated kinase 1. J Biol Chem, 2005, 280(18):18130-7.
  47. Mishra SK, Talukder AH, Gururaj AE, Yang Z, Singh RR, Mahoney MG, Francí C, Vadlamudi RK, Kumar R. Upstream determinants of estrogen receptor-alpha regulation of metastatic tumor antigen 3 pathway. J Biol Chem, 2004, 279 (31):32709-15.
  48. Singh RR, Chang JY. Investigating conformational stability of bovine pancreatic phospholipase A2: a novel concept in evaluating the contribution of the 'native- framework' of disulphides to the global conformational stability of proteins. Biochem J, 2004, 377(Pt 3):685-92.
  49. Singh RR, Chang JY. Structural stability of human alpha-thrombin studied by disulfide reduction and scrambling. Biochim Biophys Acta, 2003, 1651(1-2):85-92.
  50. Singh RR, Appu Rao AG. Reductive unfolding and oxidative refolding of a Bowman-Birk inhibitor from horsegram seeds (Dolichos biflorus): evidence for "hyperreactive" disulfide bonds and rate-limiting nature of disulfide isomerization in folding. Biochim Biophys Acta, 2002, 1597(2):280-91.

 

 

 

 

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