Indu Kohaar PhD

Education

Maters of Science (Biology), Panjab University, India, 2002
Master of Philosophy (Biology), Panjab University, India, 2003
Doctorate of Philosophy (Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry), Delhi University, India, 2010
Postdoctoral Training, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health, USA, 2013
Senior Postdoctoral Training, Center for Prostate Disease Research, Uniformed Services University, USA, 2016

Biography

Dr. Indu Kohaar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University, F Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. She also holds a Senior Staff Scientist position at Translational Research Program at Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR)/ Murtha Cancer Center Research Program (MCCRP) at Henry M Jackson Foundation (HJF), Bethesda and is a Co-Investigator for the CPDR-Early Detection Research Network/National Cancer Institute Inter-Agency Agreement, NIH (CPDR-EDRN/NCI). Dr. Kohaar has 12 years of post-Ph.D. research experience in studying the Molecular Genetics and Genomics of Human Cancers and Viral infections with the special focus on urologic cancers (cervix, bladder, and prostate). As a Translational Cancer Scientist, she has been working on the genomic approaches (gene expression-based biomarkers and genetic variants) using high throughput technologies (NanoString, DDPCR, RNAseq, WGS) to identify diagnostic and prognostic molecular biomarkers for CaP in clinical specimens (tissue biopsies, radical prostatectomy whole mounts) including liquid biopsy (serum and urine) by utilizing CPDR-MCCRP based unique Biospecimen Repository and Clinical Database resources. She is a reviewer of many journals and has trained technicians, graduate students, medical students and had been instrumental in establishing collaborative studies with different academic institutions and commercial partners.
During her post-doctoral training at NCI under the mentorship of Dr. Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Dr. Kohaar has contributed to identification of common genetic variants and downstream functional characterization of the GWAS findings in relation to urinary bladder cancer. Some of the important findings include the identification of actionable germline variant in PSCA, as a selection marker for Anti-Prostate Stem Cell Antigen immunotherapy of bladder cancer (Kohaar et al, 2013) and genetic and functional studies suggesting role of CCNE1 to genomic instability and aggressive bladder cancer (Fu and Kohaar et al, 2014). Dr. Kohaar has extensive experience on the role of host genetic variants in candidate genes associated with susceptibility to viral infections. She discovered the natural splicing diversity of OCLN gene which contributes to HCV tissue tropism and hence, possibly modify the outcome of HCV infection in humans (Kohaar et al, 2010). She also significantly contributed towards the seminal discovery of a novel human interferon, IFN-λ4, by performing a follow-up of genome wide- association study (GWAS) findings in relation to clearance of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection (Prokunina-Olsson et al, 2013).
Dr. Kohaar joined CPDR as a Senior Post-doctoral Fellow in 2014 under Dr. Gyorgy Petrovics and transitioned to Staff Scientist in 2016 and became an Assistant Professor at Department of Surgery, USUHS from December 2018. At CPDR, Dr. Kohaar has identified germline risk variants associating with ERG status of prostate cancer, a key somatic event in prostate cancer (Kohaar et al, 2019). Recently, she has demonstrated clear racial disparity in pathogenic/likely pathogenic germline mutations between AA and CA patients through a comprehensive WGS study on 600 men (Kohaar et al, 2022). A higher percentage of AA men harbored potentially targetable DNA Damage Repair Gene (DDRG) germline mutations and germline mutations in DDRGs was associated with shorter time to biochemical recurrence in AA patients. As a Co-Investigator under NCI/EDRN grant, Dr. Kohaar has developed urine based prostate cancer assay platform and identified a biomarker panel of potential clinical utility for CaP across AA and CA men. Her contributions earned her a co-inventor status on an U.S. Patent (US2021108271A1) “Prostate Cancer Gene Profiles and Methods of Using the Same” and a publication in Journal of Urology.
Research Summary:
Dr. Kohaar’s expertise include genetics, genomics, biomarkers and racial disparity. The major focus of her research is to investigate the molecular genetics underlying the prostate cancer health disparity and discovery of race/ancestry informed molecular biomarkers for clinically significant prostate cancer.
Research Project 1: Prostate cancer genetics and racial disparity (CPDR core fund)
The objective of the study is to identify prostate cancer associated genomic loci in context of racial/ancestral disparity.
Research Project 2: Evaluation of race/ethnicity optimized prostate cancer gene panels and assays in body fluids (NCI/EDRN grant)
The objective of the study is to identify and validate urine-based marker panel to distinguish between indolent and aggressive prostate cancers at biopsy.

Representative Bibliography

Kohaar I*, Zhang X, Tan S, Nousome D, Babcock K, Ravindranath L, Sukumar G, Mcgrath-Martinez E, Rosenberger J, Alba C, Ali A, Young D, Chen Y, Cullen J, Rosner I, Sesterhenn I, Dobi A, Chesnut G, Turner C, Dalgard C, Wilkerson M, Pollard HB, Srivastava S, Petrovics G*. Germline mutation landscape of DNA damage repair genes in African Americans with prostate cancer highlights potentially targetable RAD genes. Nat Commun. 2022 Mar 15;13(1):1361. (*corresponding author).

Kohaar I*, Chen Y, Banerjee S, Borbiev T, Kuo HC, Ali A, Ravindranath L, Kagan J, Srivastava S, Dobi A, Sesterhenn IA, Rosner IL, Cullen J, Srivastava S, Petrovics G*. A Urine Exosome Gene Expression Panel Distinguishes between Indolent and Aggressive Prostate Cancers at Biopsy. J Urol. 2021 Feb;205(2):420-425. doi: 10.1097/JU.0000000000001374. Epub 2020 Sep 18. PubMed PMID: 32945736. (*corresponding author).

Kohaar I*, Li Q, Chen Y, Ravindranath L, Young D, Ali A, Sesterhenn IA, Rosner IL, Cullen J, Srivastava S, Freedman M, Petrovics G*. Association of germline genetic variants with TMPRSS2-ERG fusion status in prostate cancer. Oncotarget. 2020 Apr 14;11(15):1321-1333. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.27534. eCollection 2020 Apr 14. PubMed PMID: 32341752; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7170497

Kohaar I*, Petrovics G, Srivastava S*. A Rich Array of Prostate Cancer Molecular Biomarkers: Opportunities and Challenges. Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Apr 12;20(8). doi: 10.3390/ijms20081813. Review. PubMed PMID: 31013716; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6515282. (*corresponding author).

Petrovics G, Price DK, Lou H, Chen Y, Garland L, Bass S, Jones K, Kohaar I, Ali A, Ravindranath L, Young D, Cullen J, Dorsey TH, Sesterhenn IA, Brassell SA, Rosner IL, Ross D, Dahut W, Ambs S, Figg WD, Srivastava S, Dean M. Increased frequency of germline BRCA2 mutations associates with prostate cancer metastasis in a racially diverse patient population. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis. 2019 Sep;22(3):406-410. doi: 10.1038/s41391-018-0114-1. Epub 2018 Dec 12. PubMed PMID: 30542053; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC67

Kohaar I, Porter-Gill P, Lenz P, Fu YP, Mumy A, Tang W, Apolo AB, Rothman N, Baris D, Schned AR, Ylaya K, Schwenn M, Johnson A, Jones M, Kida M, Silverman DT, Hewitt SM, Moore LE, Prokunina-Olsson L. Genetic variant as a selection marker for anti-prostate stem cell antigen immunotherapy of bladder cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2013 Jan 2;105(1):69-73

Fu YP, Kohaar I, Rothman N, Earl J, Figueroa JD, Ye Y, Malats N, et al. Common genetic variants in the PSCA gene influence gene expression and bladder cancer risk. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012

Prokunina-Olsson L, Muchmore B, Tang W, Pfeiffer RM, Park H, Dickensheets H, Hergott D, Porter-Gill P, Mumy A, Kohaar I, Chen S, Brand N, Tarway M, Liu L, Sheikh F, Astemborski J, Bonkovsky HL, Edlin BR, Howell CD, Morgan TR, Thomas DL, Rehermann B, Donnelly RP, O'Brien TR. A variant upstream of IFNL3 (IL28B) creating a new interferon gene IFNL4 is associated with impaired clearance of hepatitis C virus. Nat Genet. 2013 Feb;45(2):164-71. doi: 10.1038/ng.2521.

Kohaar I, Porter-Gill P, Lenz P, Fu YP, Mumy A, Tang W, Apolo AB, Rothman N, Baris D, Schned AR, Ylaya K, Schwenn M, Johnson A, Jones M, Kida M, Silverman DT, Hewitt SM, Moore LE, Prokunina-Olsson L. Genetic variant as a selection marker for anti-prostate stem cell antigen immunotherapy of bladder cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2013 Jan 2;105(1):69-73. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djs458. Epub 2012 Dec 23. PubMed PMID: 23266392; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3536639.

Kohaar I, Ploss A, Korol E, Mu K, Schoggins JW, O'Brien TR, Rice CM, Prokunina-Olsson L. Splicing diversity of the human OCLN gene and its biological significance for hepatitis C virus entry. J Virol. 2010 Jul;84(14):6987-94.