Dharambir Sanghera, PhD, FAHA

  • Position: Diabetes Research Member

Biography

Dr. Sanghera's research is focused on efforts to understand the interplay between environmental and genetic factors involved in type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease pathogenesis. Rising epidemic of cardiometabolic diseases is a growing public health problem among the immigrant populations in the US, particularly in the ethnicities that have migrated from rural areas to westernized urban environments. The reasons underlying these conditions are not understood. The aim of Dr. Sanghera’s research is to identify genetic susceptibility underlying these conditions in Asian Indians from India and minority populations of US including South Asians, Hispanics who are first generation immigrants and residents of states of Oklahoma, Texas, and California. United States of America. These populations have high predisposition for developing central obesity associated with metabolic and cardiovascular diseases when exposed to western diet and obesogenic environment.

Dr. Sanghera’s laboratory is currently employing genome‐wide linkage, genome‐wide association, and linkage disequilibrium approaches on family‐ and population‐based datasets, and also examining the functional role of novel variants with insulin resistance, beta‐cell dysfunction using tissue‐specific gene‐expression studies. The long‐term goals of Dr. Sanghera’s research are; 1) to identify the underlying molecular mechanisms associated with these disorders, 2) to improve the classification of the disease process by identifying genome‐wide patterns associated with ethnic variation, and 3) to discover new gene‐based targets based on ethnic origin and environmental and cultural differences which can inform the design of early prevention and treatment therapy among immigrant populations.

Dr. Sanghera is an International Fellow of the American Heart Association, serve on the Council on Atherosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology and Council of Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of American Heart Association. She also is South Central Affiliate of the American Heart Association since 2009. She has served on several Study Section panels of National Institute of Health, and many international grant review panels. She served on Expert Panel on Diabetes Round Table, provided service on Editorial Boards of eight journals and is a Lead Academic Editor of Biomed Research International. She is directing and teaching graduate level courses, has mentored and supervised undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral staff.
Health Education
  • Graduate School
  • Fellowship in Molecular Mutagenesis Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh
    Pittsburgh, PA
  • Fellowship in Genetic Epidemiology Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh
    Pittsburgh, PA
  • Doctoral Studies in Human Genetics Gura Na
    Guru Na,