Research Summary

Dr. Pavithra Viswanath is an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at UCSF. She graduated with a Ph D in Biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. The overall vision of her research is to harness insights from tumor genetics, epigenetics, and biology to drive the preclinical development of novel, metabolic imaging biomarkers that will ultimately benefit patients by enabling the non-invasive assessment of tumor burden and response to therapy. In parallel, she will pinpoint metabolic vulnerabilities in the tumor and immune microenvironment that can be exploited for the development of novel therapeutic agents. Her long-term vision is to develop an integrated, clinically translatable metabolic therapy and imaging strategy for patients battling cancer.

Research Funding

  • August 7, 2024 - July 31, 2029 - Combination metabolic therapy for diffuse midline glioma , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA292694
  • July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2028 - Developing a novel tracer for imaging oncometabolic activity in cancer , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: American Cancer Society, Sponsor Award ID: RSG-24-1258893-01-CDP
  • September 1, 2024 - August 31, 2027 - ATP Citrate Lyase as a Druggable Vulnerability in Mutant Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Gliomas , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: Department of Defense Rare Cancer Research Program, Sponsor Award ID: RA230335
  • July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2027 - Immunometabolic modulation of diffuse midline glioma response to therapy , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation, Sponsor Award ID: P0575263
  • July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2026 - Targeting And Imaging Serine Metabolism In The Tumor Microenvironment In Pediatric Brain Tumors , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: CURE Childhood Cancer, Sponsor Award ID: P0576724
  • July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2026 - In vivo precision imaging of diffuse midline gliomas , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation, Sponsor Award ID: P0567741
  • April 1, 2024 - March 31, 2026 - Synthetic combination therapy for diffuse midline gliomas , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R21CA289565
  • January 1, 2024 - December 31, 2025 - Spatial Mapping of Phospholipid Biosynthesis in Brain Tumors , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R21CA286261
  • July 25, 2023 - June 30, 2025 - Targeting metabolic vulnerabilities induced by the 1p19q codeletion in oligodendrogliomas , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R21CA277325
  • February 11, 2020 - January 31, 2025 - IMAGING TELOMERE MAINTENANCE MECHANISMS IN GLIOMAS , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA239288
  • September 1, 2022 - August 31, 2024 - In Vivo Precision Imaging Of Mutant Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Activity in Gliomas , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: American Brain Tumor Association, Sponsor Award ID: DG2200048
  • September 15, 2020 - September 14, 2022 - Imaging a Hallmark of Cancer: Noninvasive Metabolic Imaging of TERT Expression in Brain Tumors , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: Department of Defense CDMRP, Sponsor Award ID: W81XWH201055315

Education

St. Xavier’s college, Goa University, Goa, India, BSc, 2000, Microbiology
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, MS, 2003, Biochemistry
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, PhD, 2007, Biochemistry

Honors & Awards

  • American Brain Tumor Association Research Collaboration Grant, 2024
  • Inaugural Women in Neuro-oncology Basic/Translational Science Research Award, Society for Neuro-oncology, 2019
  • Career Enhancement Program Award, UCSF Brain Tumor Center SPORE, 2018
  • Margaret Hart Surbeck Travel Award, Dept. of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, UCSF
  • Career Enhancement Program Award, UCSF Brain Tumor Center SPORE, 2017

Selected Publications

  1. Batsios G, Taglang C, Udutha S, Gillespie AM, Robinson SP, Phoenix T, Mueller S, Venneti S, Koschmann C, Viswanath P. Lactylation fuels nucleotide biosynthesis and facilitates deuterium metabolic imaging of tumor proliferation in H3K27M-mutant gliomas. bioRxiv. 2025 Jan 03.  View on PubMed
  2. Batsios G, Udutha S, Taglang C, Gillespie AM, Lau B, Ji S, Phoenix T, Mueller S, Venneti S, Koschmann C, Viswanath P. GABA production induced by imipridones is a targetable and imageable metabolic alteration in diffuse midline gliomas. bioRxiv. 2024 Jun 10.  View on PubMed
  3. Udutha S, Taglang C, Batsios G, Gillespie AM, Tran M, Ronen SM, Ten Hoeve J, Graeber TG, Viswanath P. Telomerase reverse transcriptase induces targetable alterations in glutathione and nucleotide biosynthesis in glioblastomas. bioRxiv. 2023 Nov 16.  View on PubMed
  4. Batsios G, Taglang C, Gillespie AM, Viswanath P. Imaging telomerase reverse transcriptase expression in oligodendrogliomas using hyperpolarized δ-[1-13C]-gluconolactone. Neurooncol Adv. 2023 Jan-Dec; 5(1):vdad092.  View on PubMed
  5. Minami N, Hong D, Taglang C, Batsios G, Gillespie AM, Viswanath P, Stevers N, Barger CJ, Costello JF, Ronen SM. Hyperpolarized δ-[1- 13C]gluconolactone imaging visualizes response to TERT or GABPB1 targeting therapy for glioblastoma. Sci Rep. 2023 03 30; 13(1):5190.  View on PubMed
  6. Minami N, Hong D, Stevers N, Barger CJ, Radoul M, Hong C, Chen L, Kim Y, Batsios G, Gillespie AM, Pieper RO, Costello JF, Viswanath P, Ronen SM. Imaging biomarkers of TERT or GABPB1 silencing in TERT-positive glioblastoma. Neuro Oncol. 2022 11 02; 24(11):1898-1910.  View on PubMed
  7. Vaidya MV, Zhang B, Hong D, Brown R, Batsios G, Viswanath P, Paska J, Wulf G, Grant AK, Ronen SM, Larson PEZ. A 13C/31P surface coil to visualize metabolism and energetics in the rodent brain at 3 Tesla. J Magn Reson. 2022 10; 343:107286.  View on PubMed
  8. Batsios G, Taglang C, Tran M, Stevers N, Barger C, Gillespie AM, Ronen SM, Costello JF, Viswanath P. Deuterium Metabolic Imaging Reports on TERT Expression and Early Response to Therapy in Cancer. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 08 15; 28(16):3526-3536.  View on PubMed
  9. Taglang C, Batsios G, Mukherjee J, Tran M, Gillespie AM, Hong D, Ronen SM, Artee Luchman H, Pieper RO, Viswanath P. Deuterium magnetic resonance spectroscopy enables noninvasive metabolic imaging of tumor burden and response to therapy in low-grade gliomas. Neuro Oncol. 2022 07 01; 24(7):1101-1112.  View on PubMed
  10. Hong D, Batsios G, Viswanath P, Gillespie AM, Vaidya M, Larson PEZ, Ronen SM. Acquisition and quantification pipeline for in vivo hyperpolarized 13 C MR spectroscopy. Magn Reson Med. 2022 04; 87(4):1673-1687.  View on PubMed
  11. Viswanath P, Batsios G, Ayyappan V, Taglang C, Gillespie AM, Larson PEZ, Luchman HA, Costello JF, Pieper RO, Ronen SM. Metabolic imaging detects elevated glucose flux through the pentose phosphate pathway associated with TERT expression in low-grade gliomas. Neuro Oncol. 2021 09 01; 23(9):1509-1522.  View on PubMed
  12. Polvoy I, Qin H, Flavell RR, Gordon J, Viswanath P, Sriram R, Ohliger MA, Wilson DM. Deuterium Metabolic Imaging-Rediscovery of a Spectroscopic Tool. Metabolites. 2021 Aug 25; 11(9).  View on PubMed
  13. Batsios G, Taglang C, Cao P, Gillespie AM, Najac C, Subramani E, Wilson DM, Flavell RR, Larson PEZ, Ronen SM, Viswanath P. Imaging 6-Phosphogluconolactonase Activity in Brain Tumors In Vivo Using Hyperpolarized δ-[1-13C]gluconolactone. Front Oncol. 2021; 11:589570.  View on PubMed
  14. Radoul M, Hong D, Gillespie AM, Najac C, Viswanath P, Pieper RO, Costello JF, Luchman HA, Ronen SM. Early Noninvasive Metabolic Biomarkers of Mutant IDH Inhibition in Glioma. Metabolites. 2021 Feb 13; 11(2).  View on PubMed
  15. Viswanath P, Batsios G, Mukherjee J, Gillespie AM, Larson PEZ, Luchman HA, Phillips JJ, Costello JF, Pieper RO, Ronen SM. Non-invasive assessment of telomere maintenance mechanisms in brain tumors. Nat Commun. 2021 01 04; 12(1):92.  View on PubMed
  16. Zhao N, Huang Y, Wang YH, Muir RK, Chen YC, Wei J, Hooshdaran N, Viswanath P, Seo Y, Ruggero D, Renslo AR, Evans MJ. Ferronostics: Measuring Tumoral Ferrous Iron with PET to Predict Sensitivity to Iron-Targeted Cancer Therapies. J Nucl Med. 2021 Jul 01; 62(7):949-955.  View on PubMed
  17. Subramani E, Radoul M, Najac C, Batsios G, Molloy AR, Hong D, Gillespie AM, Santos RD, Viswanath P, Costello JF, Pieper RO, Ronen SM. Glutamate Is a Noninvasive Metabolic Biomarker of IDH1-Mutant Glioma Response to Temozolomide Treatment. Cancer Res. 2020 11 15; 80(22):5098-5108.  View on PubMed
  18. Molloy AR, Najac C, Viswanath P, Lakhani A, Subramani E, Batsios G, Radoul M, Gillespie AM, Pieper RO, Ronen SM. MR-detectable metabolic biomarkers of response to mutant IDH inhibition in low-grade glioma. Theranostics. 2020; 10(19):8757-8770.  View on PubMed
  19. Batsios G, Najac C, Cao P, Viswanath P, Subramani E, Saito Y, Gillespie AM, Yoshihara HAI, Larson P, Sando S, Ronen SM. In vivo detection of γ-glutamyl-transferase up-regulation in glioma using hyperpolarized γ-glutamyl-[1-13C]glycine. Sci Rep. 2020 04 10; 10(1):6244.  View on PubMed
  20. Batsios G, Viswanath P, Subramani E, Najac C, Gillespie AM, Santos RD, Molloy AR, Pieper RO, Ronen SM. PI3K/mTOR inhibition of IDH1 mutant glioma leads to reduced 2HG production that is associated with increased survival. Sci Rep. 2019 07 19; 9(1):10521.  View on PubMed

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