Chendil Damodaran

Associate Professor Chendil Damodaran, PhD, conducts cancer research at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso. His work has appeared in academic journals such as Cancer, Cancer Research, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Chendil Damodaran serves as a reviewer for dozens of medical publications and sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Carcinogenesis and Mutagenesis and the International Scholarly Research Network.

Chendil Damodaran has studied the effectiveness of natural compounds in slowing or treating cancer. He co-authored the paper "Activating Stress-activated Protein Kinase-mediated Cell Death and Inhibiting Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Signaling: A Promising Therapeutic Strategy for Prostate Cancer," published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics in 2010. The previous year, Dr. Damodaran's findings on the anti-cancer properties of the herb Semecarpus lehyam appeared in Pharmaceutical Biology. His work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, and the US Department of Defense, among others.

Apart from his research, Chendil Damodaran advises undergraduates and doctoral students. He also guest lectures on courses covering biomedical research, biochemistry, cell biology, and genes.

Dr. Damodaran was educated at the University of Madras in India. He earned a Bachelor of Zoology and a Master's and PhD in Environmental Toxicology. As a doctoral student, he conducted research at the Frederick Institute of Plant Protection and Toxicology in Chennai, India. He also was awarded a research fellowship at Japan's Hiroshima University. In 1997, he joined the University of Kentucky as a Research Associate and was later promoted to Assistant Professor.