Our Team

Ravi Maddipati, MD
Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine
Principal Investigator

Dr. Ravi Maddipati earned his medical degree at the Boston University School of Medicine in Boston. He remained in Boston to complete a residency in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital followed by a gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania where he remained as a faculty member until joining UTSW in 2019. Dr. Maddipati’s clinical interests are in Pancreatic disorders including pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer, cancer genetics, screening of high risk and hereditary gastrointestinal malignances, and general gastroenterology. His laboratory is focused on understanding and developing treatments for pancreatic cancer, tumor metastasis, and pancreatitis.

Feng Wu, Ph.D.
Lab Manager

Dr. Feng Wu earned her medical degree at the Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Science in China and her Ph.D degree at the Uppsala University in Sweden. She completed her postdoctoral training in Johns Hopkins Medical Institute. Her research career has focused on tumorigenesis and metastasis of human cancer, anti-cancer drugs screening, and gene regulation of inflammatory bowel disease using a variety of state-of-the-art molecular and genetic approaches including global gene expression analysis and genetically engineered cell and mouse models.  Dr. Wu published more than 30 well-cited scientific papers in internationally peer-reviewed journals.

Taku Higashihara, M.D., Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow

Taku received his M.D. in 2006 from Kanazawa University, Japan. He also received his Ph.D. in Medical Science in 2016 from Chiba University in Japan. Before joining Ravi’s lab, he worked as a surgeon and specialized in hepato-pancreato-biliary disease at Chiba University. He is working as a postdoctoral researcher and focusing on the mechanism of pancreatic cancer’s metastasis. Outside of work, Taku enjoys time with his family, watching movies, and cooking.

Angad Kumar, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow

Angad is from New Delhi, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in Plant genomics from NIPGR, Jawaharlal Nehru University. His doctoral work focused on genome and epigenomic variations underlying adaptive evolution signatures in thousands of rice germplasm leading to their domestication and divergence. In the Maddipati Lab, Angad is focused on applying computational methods to investigate the aberrant gene regulations and pathways that drives the pancreatic cancer progression and their metastasis. Outside of work, he likes hiking and spending time with family.

Saurav Bhattacharya, Ph.D.(Tech)
Post-doctoral Fellow

Saurav obtained his Ph.D.(Tech) degree in 2019 from Centre for Research in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India. His Ph.D. thesis work was focused on the synthesis of several polymeric nanocarriers to encapsulate a hydrophobic phytochemical thymoquinone (extracted from the black seeds of Nigella sativa) and evaluated the inhibitory effect of nanoparticles on breast cancer metastasis through modulating intracellular microRNAs axis. He joined Dr. Maddipati’s lab as a postdoctoral researcher in October, 2020. Currently, he is evaluating the effect of mechanical stresses in the desmoplastic tumor microenvironment of pancreatic cancer.

Valli Annamalai
Graduate Student

Valli is a second year PhD student in the Maddipati lab. She grew up in Singapore and completed her bachelors at UT Austin in neuroscience and economics. She has over 5 years of experience working in biomedical research labs, both in academic and biotech startup settings. At the Maddipati lab her work seeks to understand the role of the Myc interactome in pancreatic cancer. In her free time, Valli is an aspiring puppy mom, rock climber and Bollywood dancer.

Asal Saeid
Research Technician

Asal graduated in May 2020 from Texas Christian University where she worked on projects examining neurological endpoints of neurotoxic and synthesizing a tryptophan-rich macro cycle for possible drug delivery. In the Maddipati Lab, Asal is focused on generating novel genetically engineered mouse models to study tumor biology and metastasis.