Dr Aparna Rao is a clinician-scientist, a Peter Mac Foundation Discovery Partner Fellow and the VCCC Alliance Research and Education Lead for Melanoma and Skin Cancer.
Aparna completed her MBBS at the University of Western Australia in 2004, followed by physician training in Sydney. In 2012, she completed her fellowship training in Medical Oncology at Peter Mac and went on to pursue a laboratory-based PhD (2013-2018), on the topic of “Targeting Metabolism in NRAS-mutant melanoma” under the supervision of Prof Grant McArthur.
From 2018-2021, Aparna was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the laboratory of Prof Ralph DeBerardinis.
In 2021, Aparna returned to Peter Mac as a postdoctoral scientist in the McArthur Lab and a Medical Oncologist in the Melanoma and Skin Service.
Aparna aims to establish novel techniques in cancer metabolism research, with a particular interest in the identification of biomarkers and therapeutic targets for patients with melanoma.
