Sita Withers, BVSc(Hons)
Sita Withers, BVSc(Hons) (Grant 2527-E)
Mentor: Robert Rebhun, DVM, PhD, University of California, Davis
Dr. Sita Withers graduated from the University of Melbourne Veterinary School in 2008. After spending a year in general practice in Cairns, she moved back to Melbourne to undertake a rotating internship. In 2011, she moved to the U.S. to complete her residency in medical oncology at the University of California, Davis. She is currently enrolled in a PhD program while continuing to work as a medical oncologist with the Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital at UC Davis.
The overarching goal of Dr Withers' research is to better understand how naturally occurring canine cancers can contribute to the study of immunotherapeutics in both dogs and people. Specifically, her research interests are focused on the immune microenvironment in canine osteosarcoma, both in the primary and metastatic sites, and developing tools to describe the canine immune response in greater detail. Her findings are intended to inform the exploration of immunotherapeutic targets at different sites of disease and to guide the scheduling of immunotherapeutic agents around standard of care therapies already in place.
Dr. Withers’ mentor, Dr. Rebhun, has been a CHF-funded investigator studying the protein Survivin, which can function to prevent cancer cells from being killed by chemotherapy. Read more about this CHF-funded research:
01064-A: Immunocytochemical Detection and siRNA-Mediated Knockdown of Survivin in Canine Lymphoma
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