Akshaya Annapragada – Danaher Foundation Scholar
1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate
Biomedical Engineering

Research: 
There is a great need for accessible and sensitive screening approaches for carcinomas worldwide. This research focuses on novel artificial intelligence approaches to enable new whole genome analyses and enhanced understanding of cancer-related genetic changes. These approaches are enabling the development of non-invasive, affordable, accessible blood tests for early detection of cancers across a range of high-impact clinical settings.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society?
My PhD work is changing paradigms for cancer detection. Tumors found at early stages have better prognoses. However, cancer screening is a public health challenge – available procedures can be invasive or expensive, leading to disparities in access and patient compliance, and many cancers have no screening modality. The cell-free DNA based cancer blood tests I am developing are non-invasive and cost-efficient, making them accessible to far greater numbers of patients globally. For example, I recently developed a test for liver cancer that could be used to screen 400 million people globally at risk for liver cancer, less than 20% of whom currently receive appropriate screening. Now I’m expanding this work to liver cirrhosis (a condition that can lead to liver cancer) and to ovarian cancer, a devastating disease with no available screening. The screening techniques I am developing can save lives by helping to identify cancer early when it is most possible to treat and cure.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?
The ARCS award would allow me to attend a greater number of conferences and international meetings, enroll in training courses and workshops, and connect me with a community of professionals within ARCS committed to advancing science and engineering. In addition to allowing me to join this prestigious community, the award would financially support my professional development. For example, I would like to attend the two-week McKusick Short Course in Human Genetics and Genomics at the Jackson Laboratory which has been described as the “most influential annual training event in medical genetics”. This course is not included in my Biomedical Engineering PhD program, but would provide highly relevant training for me in the biology aspects of genomics research. Finally, as needed the award could supplement stipend support or high-performance computing resources that are critical to my success in this PhD program.

Career objectives:
I aspire to a career as a physician-scientist, practicing medicine in an academic setting and establishing an independent research program using artificial intelligence, genomics, and computational biology to improve public health. I anticipate focusing much of my work on oncology and cancer screening, a field in which I believe that scientific advances and equitable access to screening will save lives. As important as the science is, I know my vision of truly accessible cancer screening can only be achieved if the technology is equitably deployed to patients, which is why my future career will prioritize both community health and cutting-edge science.