Faculty Spotlight: Chandrani Sarkar, Ph.D.

Chandrani Sarkar, Ph.D.

Academic title: Assistant professor of pathology

Joined the USA College of Medicine faculty: July 2021

What does your position in the USA COM/USA Health entail?
My position at the USA COM entails conceiving, performing and supervising basic/translational cancer research consistent with the theme of the Cancer Biology Research program and the mission of the Mitchell Cancer Institute. My position also entails engaging in education and research activities of the Department of Pathology including but not limited to teaching and training graduate students, residents and postdoctoral fellows. Actively pursuing extramural research funding is an integral part of my position.

What is your favorite or most rewarding part of your position?
The opportunity to develop my own research niche is the most rewarding part of my position. In addition, I love that I get to that interact and collaborate with people from different academic and scientific backgrounds.

What research or other initiatives are you involved in?
I am interested in studying the molecular mechanisms of cancer progression and metastasis. My research goal is to elucidate the role played by neuromodulators in reprogramming the tumor microenvironment to facilitate metastatic progression of cancers.

What is your advice for medical students?
I advise medical students to engage in basic science research as application of scientific reasoning not only facilitates clinical decision-making but also can help in solving clinical problems that require molecular insights.

What are your hobbies/interests outside of work?
I enjoy spending time with my husband, son and dog. I love to cook and my favorite hobby is trying new recipes with my son, who is also very passionate about food and cooking. I love to travel. I look forward to visiting new places, trying new cuisines and making lifetime memories with my family and friends.

Solidarity Week focuses on compassionate care

Members of the Gold Humanism Honor Society hold signs created for Solidarity Week in front of University Hospital.

On the trauma floor at University Hospital, nurse Kaylin Harper was surprised with a visit from a group of medical students who delivered an envelope with her name on it.

“This is for your dedication,” said Brittany Jackson, a fourth-year medical student and member of the USA Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. “We really appreciate all you do.”

Jackson and other GHHS members from the USA College of Medicine fanned out across USA Health in a blitz of activities during Solidarity Week for Compassionate Patient Care, a national weeklong celebration of humanistic care Feb. 14-18.

“It has been an awesome privilege to show gratitude to individuals who have worked tirelessly during the COVID pandemic to make compassionate, patient-centered care their priority,” said Jackson, the chapter’s social coordinator. “It gave me the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than myself.”

On Monday, members placed a “Humanistic Poster Board” near the hospital cafés and invited physicians, nurses and staff to write on heart-shaped Post-it Notes how they planned to show acts of humanism. “I will treat my patients as if they are my family,” one note read. “Understand and Remember … we are ALL patients,” read another.

On Words of Kindness Day, GHHS members placed flyers on patients’ lunch trays that explained Solidarity Week and encouraged them to express their gratitude to the healthcare staff. Nurses were encouraged to write something they liked about their patients on white boards in the rooms.

“Compassionate care can mean so many things, but I think the most important one is listening to the story and not the problem,” said Nicolette Holliday, M.D., an OB-GYN and a faculty member of GHHS, in a video created for Solidarity Week about compassionate care.

“A lot of times patients will tell you what their problem is, but they’re really begging you to ask them their story. How did they get there? What are the outside influences that are affecting their decisions?” Holliday said. “When we ask who they are and what their story is, that means we are asking about them, not just their problem.”

Solidarity Week closed out with a show of support for second-year medical students, who are preparing to take the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1. “We just wanted to wish you good luck on Step,” GHHS President Blake Dunaway told the class during an Endocrine and Reproductive Systems module. “Y’all are going to do great.”

Dunaway and fellow GHHS members unfurled two banners wishing the students good luck and handed out fortune cookies containing the word “pass.” This year, Step 1 is moving from a numerical scoring system to pass-fail.

“This was awesome,” said Luke Harris, one of the second-year students, as he opened his fortune cookie. “It was really nice of them to make the gesture.”

The GHHS is named for the late pediatric neurologist Arnold P. Gold, M.D., who co-founded the Arnold P. Gold Foundation. Gold, who died in 2018, championed the importance of empathy and compassion in patient care, and inspired generations of doctors to connect with the patients they treated.

Solidarity Week activities are posted on social media with the hashtag #solidarityweek. Find the USA College of Medicine on Facebook @usacollegeofmed.

View more photos from Solidarity Week on Flickr. 

Watch the video on YouTube. 

'Why I became an academic medicine coach'

Pediatrician Maria R. Roca Garcia, M.D., talks about the benefits of training to become an academic medicine coach for medical students at the USA College of Medicine.

Learn more about the Academic Medicine Coaching program. 

Complete the survey to sign up to become a coach. 

Black Pioneers in Medicine: Errol D. Crook, M.D.

In celebration of Black History Month, USA Health is highlighting pioneers who have worked to eliminate health inequities in the Mobile area.

In this video, Errol D. Crook, M.D., professor and chair of internal medicine at the USA College of Medicine and director of the USA Center for Healthy Communities, discusses the role models in his life and the need for the medical profession to reflect the population it serves.

Research from USA scientists suggests ticks may transmit leprosy to people

Natthida Tongluan, a graduate research assistant in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, conducts research in the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases. 

For most of a century, researchers have explored the potential role that arthropods – such as ticks – play in the transmission of leprosy to humans and other animals, with little luck. Conclusive evidence hasn’t emerged on the topic in more than 80 years.

With that in mind, researchers from the USA College of Medicine, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, have taken up the hunt.

The results of a recently published study from that collaboration suggests that ticks themselves might serve as the point of transmission for leprosy and that tick cells are suitable for maintaining a viable form of the disease for an extended period of time.

Perhaps best known from biblical references, leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is an infection caused by Mycobacterium leprae, a bacteria found in the southern United States and elsewhere that spreads to animals, namely armadillos, and people. The majority of patients diagnosed with leprosy spend extensive time outdoors but only rarely report any direct contact with wild armadillos, said Natthida Tongluan, a graduate research assistant in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and lead author of a research paper published in Frontiers in Microbiology on the topic.

Whether leprosy is transmitted to new vertebrate hosts through the environment independently or with the help of other organisms, like ticks, remains a fundamental question in leprosy transmission.

The study aimed to assess the potential for ticks to transmit leprosy and to test if the disease could be maintained in tick-derived cells. To do that, ticks in the nymph stage were injected with leprosy. Testing later found that ticks infected as nymphs harbored the disease through some stages of their life. Transmission of leprosy to a lab model also was observed as DNA was detected in multiple tick life cycle stages.

What the collaborators found through the research was that tick-derived cells were able to maintain viable disease during a 49-day course of infection, and the leprosy remained infectious within tick cells for at least 300 days.

Kevin Macaluso, Ph.D., chair of microbiology and immunology, said the new research advances the field by establishing a model transmission system to help reveal the ecology of leprosy in the Americas.

In the near future, Macaluso hopes to be able to pinpoint the transmission details of leprosy by ticks.