Faculty Associates

Aparna Sundaram, M.D.

Assistant Professor
Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Department of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco

513 Parnassus Ave, HSE-201
San Francisco, CA 94143

Tel: 415-514-8363
E-mail: [email protected]

Website:
Aparna Sundaram

Aparna Sundaram is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Medicine. She completed both her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and M.D. at Northwestern University. After completing her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Northwestern, she pursued fellowship training in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She then completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Dean Sheppard in the Lung Biology Center and Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.

The Sundaram laboratory is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms by which airway smooth muscle cells respond to allergic inflammation and regulate force transmission in chronic airways disease. Current research is focused on understanding the role of cell-matrix and cell-cell tethering in regulating force in smooth muscle. Using a combination of in vitro screening, ex vivo contraction assays, in vivo disease-modeling, and advanced microscopy, the Sundaram lab aims to establish a pipeline for academic drug discovery to advance novel inhibitors of cellular tethering into the clinical setting. We are aided in these efforts by ongoing collaborations with the Sheppard, DeGrado, and Agarwal (Baylor) labs.

Selected Publications:
  1. Liu S, Ngo U, Tang XZ, Ren X, Qiu W, Huang X, DeGrado W, Allen CD, Jo H, Sheppard D, Sundaram AB. Integrin α2β1 regulates collagen I tethering to modulate hyperresponsiveness in reactive airway disease models. J Clin Invest. 2021 Jun 15;131(12):e138140. PMID: 33956668.
  2. Sundaram A, Chen C, Isik Reed N, Liu S, Ki Yeon S, McIntosh J, Tang YZ, Yang H, Adler M, Beresis R, Seiple IB, Sheppard D, DeGrado WF, Jo H. Dual antagonists of a5ß1/avß1 integrin for airway hyperresponsiveness. Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2020 11 15; 30(22):127578. PMID: 33007395
  3. Lazar AM, Irannejad R, Baldwin TA, Sundaram AB, Gutkind JS, Inoue A, Dessauer CW, Von Zastrow M. G protein-regulated endocytic trafficking of adenylyl cyclase type 9. Elife. 2020 Jun 09; 9. PMID: 32515353.
  4. Del Cid JS, Reed NI, Molnar K, Liu S, Dang B, Jensen SA, DeGrado W, Handford PA, Sheppard D, Sundaram AB. A disease-associated mutation in fibrillin-1 differentially regulates integrinmediated cell adhesion. J Biol Chem. 2019 11 29; 294(48):18232-18243. PMID: 31640988.
  5. Bulek K, Chen X, Parron V, Sundaram A, Herjan T, Ouyang S, Liu C, Majors A, Zepp J, Gao J, Dongre A, Bodaszewska-Lubas M, Echard A, Aronica M, Carman J, Garantziotis S, Sheppard D, Li X. IL-17A Recruits Rab35 to IL-17R to Mediate PKCa-Dependent Stress Fiber Formation and Airway Smooth Muscle Contractility. J Immunol. 2019 03 01; 202(5):1540-1548. PMID: 30683702.
  6. Sundaram A, Chen C, Khalifeh-Soltani A, Atakilit A, Ren X, Qiu W, Jo H, DeGrado W, Huang X, Sheppard D. Targeting integrin a5ß1 ameliorates severe airway hyperresponsiveness in experimental asthma. J Clin Invest. 2017 01 03; 127(1):365-374. PMID: 27918306.
  7. Tsvetanova NG, Trester-Zedlitz M, Newton BW, Riordan DP, Sundaram AB, Johnson JR, Krogan NJ, von Zastrow M. G Protein-Coupled Receptor Endocytosis Confers Uniformity in Responses to Chemically Distinct Ligands. Mol Pharmacol. 2017 Feb; 91(2):145- 156. PMID: 27879340.
  8.  Bhattacharya M, Sundaram A, Kudo M, Farmer J, Ganesan P, Khalifeh-Soltani A, Arjomandi M, Atabai K, Huang X, Sheppard D. IQGAP1-dependent scaffold suppresses RhoA and inhibits airway smooth muscle contraction. J Clin Invest. 2014 Nov; 124(11):4895-8. PMID: 25271629.
  9.  Katsumoto TR, Kudo M, Chen C, Sundaram A, Callahan EC, Zhu JW, Lin J, Rosen CE, Manz BN, Lee JW, Matthay MA, Huang X, Sheppard D, Weiss A. The phosphatase CD148 promotes airway hyperresponsiveness through SRC family kinases. J Clin Invest. 2013 May; 123(5):2037-48. PMID: 23543053.
  10. Sugimoto K, Kudo M, Sundaram A, Ren X, Huang K, Bernstein X, Wang Y, Raymond WW, Erle DJ, Abrink M, Caughey GH, Huang X, Sheppard D. The avß6 integrin modulates airway hyperresponsiveness in mice by regulating intraepithelial mast cells. J Clin Invest. 2012 Feb; 122(2):748-58. PMID: 22232213.