Dr. Ankita Thakkar has completed her Ph.D. at the University of Miami, FL. Her thesis work was based on studying of hormone receptors as targeted therapy for the treatment of triple negative breast cancers; an aggressive and highly invasive sub-type of breast cancer. The main focus of this research was on co-targeting of two receptors: androgen receptor and Vitamin D receptor which is co-expressed in 20% of the triple negative breast cancers. The co-treatment of the two receptor specific agonists induced additive decrease in cell viability as well as cancer stem cell population of the tumor cells. Moreover, these specific agonists could also be combined with the current therapies of triple negative tumors such as chemotherapeutic agents. Currently, she is working at Burke-Weill Cornell School of Medicine, as a post-doctoral fellow. Her work is focused on studying the role of mitochondrial enzymes in neurodegenerative diseases using pluripotent stem cells as a model system.

Her research has covered a broad range of topics including Molecular cloning,RNA extraction and qPCR,Cell proliferation and cytotoxicity assays,oncology,neurodegenerative diseases,Immunohistochemistry etc.