{"id":14709,"date":"2016-09-14T07:53:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T12:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=14709"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:29:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:29:02","slug":"pranavi-sanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=14709","title":{"rendered":"Pranavi Sanka"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\"pranavi-sanka\"<\/a>Senior Pranavi Sanka is an undergraduate researcher in the UNC<\/span>College of Arts &<\/span> Sciences, majoring in biology and computer science, with a minor in chemistry. Her research focuses on developing new therapies for a subset of breast cancer. After graduation, she plans to attend medical school with the goal to become a primary care\u00a0physician.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0When you were a child, what was your response to this question: \u201cWhat do you want to be when you grow\u00a0up?\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

In first grade, I wanted to be an astronaut and go to space. Later, in elementary school, I wanted to be a news reporter because I liked the idea of being able to share important events and ideas with others.<\/p>\n

Describe your research in five words.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\u00a0\u201c<\/span><\/span>Investigating new breast\u00a0cancer\u00a0therapies.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Share the pivotal moment in your life that helped you choose research as a career\u00a0path.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was a high school sophomore, I attended a science summer camp called Summer Ventures. I worked in a lab at the Brody School of Medicine, researching the link between an increase in autoreactive T cells and autism. I enjoyed asking scientific questions and putting my classroom biology knowledge into practice in the\u00a0lab.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s an interesting thing that\u2019s happened during your\u00a0research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I got the chance to shadow an oncologist at UNC<\/span> Hospitals for a day. I saw many patients treated through clinical trials developed in research labs at UNC<\/span> and other universities. One patient, whose tumor had an exact match with a clinical trial that had recently come in, was responding very well and her tumor\u2019s size reduced drastically. It was rewarding to see how much of a positive impact research can have on the lives and prognoses of patients.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
What advice would you give to up-and-coming female researchers in your\u00a0field?<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For women interested in computer science: Don\u2019t be discouraged or intimidated by the lack of females in your classes and in the department. I say this from experience \u2014 in some of my computer science classes at UNC<\/span>, I was one of the only girls in the class. We can accomplish anything as long as we set our minds to it and make use of our\u00a0resources.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\u00a0UNC<\/span> Research is proud of every scientist on this campus, but we are especially excited to promote our female researchers in 2016. Each week this year, we will publish a short Q&A feature on one of them \u2014 whether she is an undergrad, PhD candidate, or full professor. Please click here<\/a> to make a\u00a0recommendation.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior Pranavi Sanka is an undergraduate researcher focusing on developing new therapies for a subset of breast cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[274,1807,339,26,1808,55,36],"class_list":["post-14709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biology","tag-breast-cancer","tag-chemistry","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-pranavi-sanka","tag-research","tag-unc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47858,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14709\/revisions\/47858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}