Our Team: Commercialization Council

Yogen Saunthararajah MD, Associate Staff in the Department of Hematologic Oncology and Blood Disorders

Associate Staff in the Department of Hematologic Oncology and Blood Disorders with a secondary appointment in the Department of Translational Hematology and Oncology Research at the Taussig Cancer Institute of the Cleveland Clinic, and an Associate Professor and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at CWRU. Dr. Saunthararajah received undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Wales College of Medicine, and completed medical and surgical internships at University Hospitals of Wales, United Kingdom. Dr. Saunthararajah served as a Captain (Military Medicine) in the Singapore Armed Forces, Singapore. A major objective of his laboratory's work is to develop therapy that selectively destroys malignant cells while sparing normal stem cells. To this end, the work covers a number of aspects: one aspect focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which malignant stem cells self-renew, and finding differences between malignant self-renewal and normal stem cell self-renewal. Another aspect focuses on identifying and developing drug-able compounds that target identified differences between normal and malignant self-renewal. A final aspect studies the pharmacologic properties and considerations of proposed agents to enable the clinical trials for selective malignant stem cell destruction. The other major objective of his efforts is to develop more effective methods for pharmacologic reactivation of fetal hemoglobin expression as a treatment for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.