Sonal Desai Email and Phone Number

• Serve as Program Manager for portfolio of awards from various agencies include NIH, DOD, and AACR. Liaise with program officers at funding agencies. • Strategic planning to advance and grow the PI’s program through large scale programmatic and consortium grants. Oversee short- and long-term planning that will allow the simultaneous success of multiple research projects. • Oversee, coordinate, track, and manage all project related activities including develop detailed timelines for projects to ensure completion of activities and milestones; data management for research projects; monitoring data security, privacy, confidentiality, and accessibility of information; and managing necessary clinical trial documentation for multiple protocols.• Provide advance molecular biology expertise and resources in the laboratory. Guide and support project scientists, postdoctoral fellows, trainees and staff in molecular biology methods, experimental procedures, and interpretation of results.

Co-teach Grant Writing to scholars (PhD, MD, graduate students) in various mentoring programs at UC Davis.

• In depth knowledge of the NIH/NCI P30 Cancer Center Support Grant administration, requirements, guidelines, and submission and renewal process. Lead the effort to ensure that all FOA guidelines and requirements for the implementation of the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant (P30) are met including oversight of information and accurate reporting submitted in the annual progress report and competitive renewal, written summaries, shared resources reporting, data tables, finances, membership, etc.• Strategic planning for the center, SWOT analysis, conceptualization and development of major research initiatives, and oversee cancer research related activities (symposiums, retreats, meetings, etc.), develop presentations for leadership and strategic meetings.• Grant proposal preparation, including writing, critiquing draft proposals to improve clarity, organization and overall competitiveness, editing, fact-gathering, identifying institutional resources, obtaining supporting documents and forms, human subject documentation, proposal formatting, and submission.

CHEM 305 - Introduction to Chemistry, lecture and labs.

• Explore resistance to EGFR therapy in lung and breast cancer: Identify molecular profiles for EGFR treatment failure using SNP and CNV arrays, RNA-seq and Exome NGS, PCR, and protein analysis of cell lines and patient samples. Construct molecular profiles that predict the best treatment options for patients. Test new chemotherapy options in vitro and in vivo based on the molecular profile. • Establish and characterize lung cancer PDX models.• Develop and test novel nanoparticle delivery system for current breast cancer drugs.

• Investigate the relationship between IL-6 induced autophagy and neuroendocrine differentation in LNCaP cells using 2D and 3D cell culture.• Develop 3D in vitro prostate models using normal and tumorgenic prostate cells, and train staff on how to culture cells in 3D and how to utilize this model to investigate prostate cancer progression.

• Investigated the consequence of ECM stiffness on signal transduction events and breast cancer progression using 3 dimensional in vitro breast cancer models.

Project Leader• Developed and implemented new cell based screening assays for Osteoporosis and Neurobiology projects resulting in lead compound selection, optimization, and clinical trials.• Analyzed and managed data of high-throughput screening efforts for small molecule inhibitors of estrogen receptor activity (SERMs) and for nerve growth factor mimetics.New Technologies and Assay Development• Developed secondary screening assays for drug discovery including a GI permeability assay, a one-tube, one-step multiplexed RT-PCR assay and a real-time quantitative RT-PCR assay.

• Assisted R&D in the development of new products and their transfer to manufacturing, including developing and documenting SOPs for Testing and Quality Control for large-scale manufacturing.• Investigated and implemented new cost-cutting manufacturing procedures.• Responsible for production of all tissue culture related cell biology products and all DNA, RNA, and protein markers.• Troubleshoot manufacturing problems and quality issues, and improved product quality for product lines.