Srinivas Malladi

Srinivas Malladi identified key transcription factor programs involving Sox2 and Sox9 that maintain disseminated tumor cells in a latent state by actively suppressing WNT signaling and enabling immune evasion at metastatic sites. His work at UT Southwestern Medical Center demonstrated that latent cancer cells downregulate WNT ligands and upregulate DKK1 to avoid immune detection by natural killer cells, revealing that dormancy is an actively maintained program rather than a passive state. His research provides mechanistic understanding of how cancer cells survive undetected for years and informs strategies to break dormancy for therapeutic elimination.