(MENAFN- Colombo Gazette) Sri Lankan born, Johns Hopkins scientist Ashani Weeraratna, a leading cancer researcher who specializes in melanoma and the effects of aging on cancer, has been appointed by US President Joe Biden to serve as a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board.
The National Cancer Advisory Board will compliment the Administration's efforts to build on the spirit and learnings of the Cancer Moonshot, which President Biden led in the Obama-Biden Administration.
Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Lesotho in Africa, Dr. Weeraratna first came to the United States in 1988 to study biology at St. Mary's College of Maryland.
She earned a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Oncology at the Department of Pharmacology of George Washington University Medical Center.
Weeraratna has also undertaken a global analysis of how the aged microenvironment promotes metastasis, using a unique resource of normal skin fibroblasts from healthy donors of differing ages, proteomics analysis, and animal models, and the clinical implications of these data may also result in a change in clinical practice, as they are finding age-related differences in responses to both targeted and immunotherapy.
She is President of the Society for Melanoma Research, and a fierce champion of and a mentor for junior faculty, people of color and women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). (Colombo Gazette)
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