Mr. Anup Jha is a PhD candidate at the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer, Tata Memorial Center. His doctoral research focuses on therapy resistance in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the most prevalent hematological malignancy in adults. He is engaged in the discovery of novel therapeutic targets and the development of new small-molecule inhibitors to improve outcomes for therapy-resistant AML patients.
Anup holds a bachelor’s degree in zoology from Scottish Church College, University of Calcutta, West Bengal. He developed a keen interest in molecular and cell biology during this time and led several outreach programs for cancer patients. He then pursued a master’s degree in zoology at the same university, where he specialized in molecular cell biology. In his master’s project, he wrote a grant proposal to identify novel oncogenic receptors in therapy-resistant pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients and to develop CAR-T cells targeting therapy resistant acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells .
As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow, Anup is investigating why TP53-mutated AML patients respond poorly to Ven-Aza combination therapy and how different TP53 mutant clones rewire the AML cellular state in response to Ven-Aza, thereby contributing to therapy refractoriness and resistance. His study would enable the discovery of molecular pathways and the identification of additional therapeutic targets in Ven-Aza-resistant TP53-mutated AMLs.
His long-term goal is to unravel the complexities of leukemia biology, advance understanding of therapy resistance, and contribute to the development of next-generation therapeutics.