Biology Department
Place holder headshot when no photo is available

Sita Subbaram

Job Title
Visiting Assistant Professor
Butterfield 306

Areas of expertise

Cancer: genetics of cancer, metastasis and invasion and chemoresistance

Molecular and cellular biology and biochemistry

RNA processing and turnover

Research interests

I am a cancer cell biologist and am interested in interactions of aberrant cells with their tumor microenvironment and how this enables them to invade and metastasize. Cell surface receptors called integrins play an important role both under normal and disease conditions. Determining the functional difference between these is an important avenue of future cancer therapy. One of the key pathways that integrin a3b1 affects is the stability of certain tumor promoting mRNAs that provide certain growth advantages to the tumor cell.

Teaching interests

BIO-489-02 - Topics: Cellular & Molecular, BIO-104L-05 - Cellular Foundations Life Lab. BIO 109 Anatomy and Physiology, BIO 206 Physiological systems.

Publications

Subbaram, S, Lyons, S.P, Svenson, K.B, Hammond, S.L, McCabe, L.G, Chittur, S.V, DiPersio, C.M. Integrin a3b1 controls alternate exon usage that determines cyclooxygenase-2 (Cox-2) mRNA stability in breast cancer cells, J. Cell Science. 2014, Mar 15, 127(2):1179-89. PMID: 24434582

Bartling, T*, Subbaram, S*, Kar, S. and Melendez, J.A. Redox-sensitive gene regulatory events controlling aberrant matrix metalloproteinase-1 expression. Free Radic Biol Med. 2014 Sep; 74:99-107. PMID: 2497364. *Both authors contributed equally to this work

Iuliana, J.N, Kutscha, P.D, Biederman, J.N, Subbaram, S, Melendez, J.A, Groves, J.R, Tenenbaum, S.A and Hempel, N. Metastatic bladder cancer cells uniquely sense and respond to nanotopography by enhanced alignment, migration and filopodia formation. Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2015 May;240(5):601-10. PMID: 25465204

Missan, D.S, Mitchell, K.M, Subbaram, S, DiPersio, C.M. Integrin α3β1 signaling through MEK/ERK determines alternative polyadenylation of the MMP-9 mRNA transcript in immortalized mouse keratinocytes. PLoSOne 2015 Mar 9;10(3): e0119539. PMID: 25751421

Academic credentials

B.S., MS University; M.S., Albany Medical College; PhD Albany Medical College