Mentor: Maria Spies

Awarded PhD in Cancer Biology in 2023

Thesis:

Therapeutic disruption of RAD52-ssDNA complexation using novel drug like scaffolds

Other positions

2024-2025   Postdoctoral Scholar, Mike Wendt Lab, University of Iowa

2023-2024   Postdoctoral Scholar, Ali Salem Lab, University of Iowa

2016-2018   Research Associate, H Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Center, FL

Awards:

T32 Pre-Doctoral Training fellowship in Biotechnology (HHS-NIH), Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing, University of Iowa

Publications:

1. Bhat DS, Malacaria E, Biagi LD, et al. Therapeutic disruption of RAD52-ssDNA complexation via novel drug-like inhibitors. NAR Cancer. Jun 2023;5(2):zcad018. 

2. Bhat DS, Spies MA, Spies M. A moving target for drug discovery: Structure activity relationship and many genome (de)stabilizing functions of the RAD52 protein. DNA Repair (Amst). Dec 2022;120:103421. 

3. Andolino C, Cotul EK, Xianyu Z, Li Y, Bhat D, et al.  Fatty Acid Synthase-Derived Lipid Stores Support Breast Cancer Metastasis. Res Sq. 2024  https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5510550/v1 

4. Xu Y, McMillan A, Gupta N, Lemke-Miltner CD, Rataan AO, Areecheewakul S, Bhat DS, et al. (2025). In situ treatment with a TLR9 agonist virus-like particle to promote immune responses against oral epithelial dysplasia progression. Cancer Immunol Immunother, 74(6), 189. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00262-025-04023-1 

5. Granger SL, Sharma R, Kaushik V, Razzaghi M, Honda M, Bhat DS, et al. Human hnRNPA1 reorganizes telomere-bound Replication Protein A. bioRxiv. May 24 2023.