Soundharya Kumaresan is a graduate student focused on developing AI-driven computational platforms to decode transcriptional and molecular mechanisms of cancer. More specifically, she is investigating transcriptional switch points in pancreatic precancer for early therapeutic interception and applying deep learning to predict clinically actionable targets from routine pathology slides in bladder cancer.
Developing AI-driven computational platforms to decode transcriptional and molecular mechanisms of cancer by investigating transcriptional switch points in pancreatic precancer for early therapeutic interception and applying deep learning to predict clinically actionable targets from routine pathology slides in bladder cancer.
For the PanIN-Intercept project, she is mapping the transcriptional decision points that drive pancreatic precancer toward malignancy to identify early interception targets for therapeutic intervention.
For the BASIL project, Soundharya is working to decodeg the molecular landscape of muscle-invasive bladder cancer directly from routine pathology slides using deep learning to enable accessible and scalable molecular profiling including drug targets, mutations and metabolic programs for treatment selection.
Soundharya's areas of interest include computational oncology, single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, cancer systems biology, and AI-assisted drug target discovery. Of special interest is the use of AI in pathology and multi-omics integration for early cancer detection biomarker discovery in PDAC.
She says, "Pancreatic cancer is almost always diagnosed after the window for intervention has closed. I believe the solution begins upstream, in the transcriptional biology of precancer. By combining AI-driven computational modelling with patient-derived single-cell and spatial data, my goal is to decode the regulatory signals that precede malignancy and translate those discoveries into actionable early detection strategies, bridging systems biology and translational oncology to change when pancreatic cancer is caught."
Soundharya earned a masters of science degree in biological and biomolecular science from University College in Dublin, Ireland, where she earned a Global Excellence Scholarship. She completed undergraduate studies and earned a Best All-Round Student Award from the Biotechnology Department at Kumaraguru College of Technology, India.
As a scholar, she has presented her work at several conferences, including a Selected Oral Presentation on stem memory T cells at the Spring Scientific Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) in 2024 and a Selected Oral Presentation on metabolism in stem memory T cells at the Block Symposium, American Association of Immunologists (AAI) the same year.
Soundharya served as an ad hoc peer reviewer in Molecular Cancer Research for the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), 2024.
Prior to joining the Madabhushi Lab, Soundharya was an assistant academic research scientist in Dr. Chrystal Paulos' lab of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. She worked on two independent projects: one investigating a novel metabolic regulator associated with CD8+ T cell stemness in melanoma models, and another focused on enhancing the potency of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) for solid tumor immunotherapy. In collaboration with Dr. Gregory Lesinski's lab, she conducted computational analyses of cholangiocarcinoma datasets to identify biomarkers for targeted therapy. She also supported lab members with bulk RNA-seq and scRNA-seq analyses and contributed to their research on cancer metabolism, resulting in co-authorship on peer-reviewed publications. Additional responsibilities included laboratory inventory management, human and mouse sample storage and record keeping, and training undergraduate students, graduate students, and surgical residents in mouse handling and experimental research methods.