Swathi Arur
Professor
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Department of Genetics
Swathi Arur, Ph.D. leads a discovery-driven research program that integrates RNA biology, developmental and reproductive biology, and cancer biology to understand how cell identity and function are regulated across biological systems. Her laboratory uses the C. elegans germline as a powerful in vivo model to uncover how post-transcriptional gene regulation, signaling pathways such as RAS–ERK, and dynamic post-translational modifications coordinate meiosis, oocyte maturation, and the oocyte-to-embryo transition. A major focus of the Arur Lab is understanding female fertility as an environmentally responsive process. The lab investigates how maternal nutrition, metabolic state, and environmental conditions are sensed by the germline and translated into molecular programs that influence oocyte quality, embryonic viability, and progeny health. These studies address fundamental questions about reproductive robustness, adaptability, and intergenerational inheritance. Insights from these basic systems are actively translated to disease contexts, particularly KRAS-driven lung cancer, where the lab studies how conserved RNA- and signaling-based mechanisms drive lineage plasticity, therapy resistance, and metastasis using mouse models, organoids, and single-cell genomics. The Arur Lab is highly interdisciplinary, combining genetics, biochemistry, advanced imaging, proteomics, and single-cell and multi-omic approaches. Dr. Arur is deeply committed to mentorship, providing graduate students with rigorous training, intellectual independence, and opportunities to pursue bold, mechanism-driven questions at the interface of fundamental biology and human disease.
Education & Training
Ph.D. - All India Institute for Medical Sciences - 2002
Research Info
regulation and execution of RAS-ERK signaling; germ cell development; C. elegans genetics