Tara Sigdel, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, UCSF

Cancer Center Program Memberships

Affiliate Member

Research Summary

My research is driven by two major factors. First, there is an unprecedented pressure to deliver new and improved diagnostic and treatment options to patients. Second, due to improved understanding of biological intricacies with ever improving molecular assays have placed us in a much better position to look for disease specific biomarkers that once validated can be used in the clinics in order to provide timely and accurate assessment of health status of patients.

Education

Tribhuvan University, Nepal, B.Sc., 08/87-07/89, Biology/Chemistry
Tribhuvan University, Nepal, M.Sc., 07/90-08/92, Chemistry
Miami University, Oxford, OH & Stanford University, Ph.D., 08/00-09/05, Biochemistry
Stanford University, Postdoctoral Training, 11/05-06/09, Biomarker Discovery in Organ Transplantation

Professional Experience

1992-1993
Research Assistant, Research Laboratory for Agricultural Biotechnology and Biochemistry
1993-1994
Lecturer, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal
1995-2000
Chemistry Faculty, Chemistry Dept, Budhanilkantha School, Kathmandu, Nepal
1999-2000
Chair, Chemistry Dept., Budhanilkantha School, Kathmandu, Nepal
2000-2003
Teaching Associate, Miami University, Oxford, OH
2004-2005
Graduate Research Assistant, Miami University, Oxford, OH
2005-2009
Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
2009-2011
Research Associate, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
2012-2014
Associate Scientist, California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, CA
2014-present
Assistant Professor, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Honors & Awards

2007-2008
Recipient of Deans Fellowship 2007-2008, Stanford University
2008-2009
Recipient of Pediatric Research Fund – CHRP Award
2008
Helena Anna Henzl Gabor Award to attend XXII International Congress of The Transplantation Society, Sydney, Australia
2009-2010
Recipient of Pediatric Research Fund – CHRP Award
2009-2010
Awarded with Transplant and Tissue Engineering Center of Excellence (COE) grant to work
as a postdoctoral fellow on the development of a novel non-Invasive urinary proteomic panel for monitoring transplant health.

Selected Publications

Sigdel TK, Nicora CD, Qian WJ, Sarwal MM. Optimization for Peptide Sample Preparation for Urine Peptidomics. Methods Mol Biol. 2018 Apr 06.
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Pineda S, Sigdel TK, Chen J, Jackson AM, Sirota M, Sarwal MM. Corrigendum: Novel Non-Histocompatibility Antigen Mismatched Variants Improve the Ability to Predict Antibody-Mediated Rejection Risk in Kidney Transplant. Front Immunol. 2018; 9:107.
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Pineda S, Sigdel TK, Chen J, Jackson AM, Sirota M, Sarwal MM. Novel Non-Histocompatibility Antigen Mismatched Variants Improve the Ability to Predict Antibody-Mediated Rejection Risk in Kidney Transplant. Front Immunol. 2017; 8:1687.
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Towfighi P, Shaw J, Sigdel T. Fractionation of Soluble Proteins Using DEAE-Sepharose, SP-Sepharose, and Phenyl Sepharose Chromatographies for Proteomics. Methods Mol Biol. 2017 Dec 02.
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Sigdel TK, Sarwal MM. Discovery of Immune Reactive Human Proteins by High-Density Protein Arrays and Customized Validation of Potential Biomarkers by ELISA. Methods Mol Biol. 2017 Nov 08.
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Gao Y, Wang H, Nicora CD, Shi T, Smith RD, Sigdel TK, Sarwal MM, Camp DG, Qian WJ. LC-SRM-Based Targeted Quantification of Urinary Protein Biomarkers. Methods Mol Biol. 2017 Nov 08.
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Roedder S, Sigdel T, Hsieh SC, Cheeseman J, Metes D, Macedo C, Reed EF, Gritsch HA, Zeevi A, Shapiro R, Kirk AD, Sarwal MM. Expression of Mitochondrial-Encoded Genes in Blood Differentiate Acute Renal Allograft Rejection. Front Med (Lausanne). 2017; 4:185.
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Chandran S, Tang Q, Sarwal M, Laszik ZG, Putnam AL, Lee K, Leung J, Nguyen V, Sigdel T, Tavares EC, Yang JYC, Hellerstein M, Fitch M, Bluestone JA, Vincenti F. Polyclonal Regulatory T Cell Therapy for Control of Inflammation in Kidney Transplants. Am J Transplant. 2017 Nov; 17(11):2945-2954.
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Sigdel TK, Sarwal MM. Assessment of Circulating Protein Signatures for Kidney Transplantation in Pediatric Recipients. Front Med (Lausanne). 2017; 4:80.
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Crespo E, Roedder S, Sigdel T, Hsieh SC, Luque S, Cruzado JM, Tran TQ, Grinyó JM, Sarwal MM, Bestard O. Molecular and Functional Noninvasive Immune Monitoring in the ESCAPE Study for Prediction of Subclinical Renal Allograft Rejection. Transplantation. 2017 06; 101(6):1400-1409.
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Pidala J, Sigdel TK, Wang A, Hsieh S, Inamoto Y, Martin PJ, Flowers ME, Hansen JA, Lee SJ, Sarwal MM. A combined biomarker and clinical panel for chronic graft versus host disease diagnosis. J Pathol Clin Res. 2017 Jan; 3(1):3-16.
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Sigdel TK, Bestard O, Salomonis N, Hsieh SC, Torras J, Naesens M, Tran TQ, Roedder S, Sarwal MM. Intragraft Antiviral-Specific Gene Expression as a Distinctive Transcriptional Signature for Studies in Polyomavirus-Associated Nephropathy. Transplantation. 2016 10; 100(10):2062-70.
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Nasr M, Sigdel T, Sarwal M. Advances in diagnostics for transplant rejection. Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2016 10; 16(10):1121-1132.
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Yang JY, Sigdel TK, Sarwal MM. Self-antigens and rejection: a proteomic analysis. Curr Opin Organ Transplant. 2016 Aug; 21(4):362-7.
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Sigdel TK, Gao Y, He J, Wang A, Nicora CD, Fillmore TL, Shi T, Webb-Robertson BJ, Smith RD, Qian WJ, Salvatierra O, Camp DG, Sarwal MM. Mining the human urine proteome for monitoring renal transplant injury. Kidney Int. 2016 06; 89(6):1244-52.
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Wei C, Sigdel TK, Sarwal MM, Reiser J. Circulating CD40 autoantibody and suPAR synergy drives glomerular injury. Ann Transl Med. 2015 Nov; 3(19):300.
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Sigdel TK, Bestard O, Tran TQ, Hsieh SC, Roedder S, Damm I, Vincenti F, Sarwal MM. A Computational Gene Expression Score for Predicting Immune Injury in Renal Allografts. PLoS One. 2015; 10(9):e0138133.
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Vitalone MJ, Sigdel TK, Salomonis N, Sarwal RD, Hsieh SC, Sarwal MM. Transcriptional Perturbations in Graft Rejection. Transplantation. 2015 Sep; 99(9):1882-93.
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Sigdel TK, Ng YW, Lee S, Nicora CD, Qian WJ, Smith RD, Camp DG, Sarwal MM. Perturbations in the urinary exosome in transplant rejection. Front Med (Lausanne). 2014; 1:57.
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Woo SH, Sigdel TK, Dinh VT, Vu MT, Sarwal MM, Lafayette RA. Mapping novel immunogenic epitopes in IgA nephropathy. Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 2015 Mar 06; 10(3):372-81.
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