Dr Siddhartha Kar
Position: Group Leader
Personal home page:
https://www.earlycancer.cam.ac.uk/dr-siddhartha-kar
PubMed journal articles - click here
Dr Siddhartha Kar is pleased to consider applications from prospective PhD students.
With the support of funding from UK Research and Innovation and Cancer Research UK, the Kar group primarily studies inherited or germline genetic variation and leverages this variation to investigate the causes, consequences, and correlates of key somatic or tumour genomic aberrations responsible for driving cancer development and progression. The ultimate aim is to use insights from this work to inform the prevention, early detection and treatment of common cancers.
The group is also involved in the search for inherited genetic risk factors that are pleiotropic or shared across some of the major hormone-related cancer types -- specifically breast, prostate, ovarian, and endometrial cancers -- and also shared between cancers and their risk factors. Cross-cancer pleiotropic genome-wide association studies may offer unique opportunities to build multi-cancer risk prediction and stratification tools to better target early detection interventions. This aspect of the group’s work is funded by a five-year R01 grant awarded in 2022 by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) on which Siddhartha serves as one of three principal investigators (PIs), and is the only PI based outside the US.
Symplectic Elements feed provided by Research Information, University of Cambridge
* indicates co-first or co-last author
† indicates corresponding author
20. Kar SP. A New Frontier for Cancer Genetics: Identification of Germline-Somatic Associations. Cancer Res. 2023 Apr 14;83(8):1165–6.
19. Kennedy OJ†, Bafligil C, O’Mara TA, Wang X, Evans DG, Kar S*, Crosbie EJ*. Child and adult adiposity and subtype-specific endometrial cancer risk: a multivariable Mendelian randomisation study. Int J Obes. 2022 Nov 10; PMID: 36357562 PMCID: PMC9834041
18. Kar SP†*, Quiros PM†*, Gu M, Jiang T, Mitchell J, Langdon R, et al. Genome-wide analyses of 200,453 individuals yield new insights into the causes and consequences of clonal hematopoiesis. Nat Genet. 2022 Aug;54(8):1155–66. PMID: 35835912 PMCID: PMC9355874
17. Nameki R*, Shetty A*, Dareng E, Tyrer J, Lin X, Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium, Pharoah P, Corona RI, Kar S*, Lawrenson K†*. chromMAGMA: regulatory element-centric interrogation of risk variants. Life Sci Alliance. 2022 Jul 1;5(10):e202201446. PMID: 35777959 PMCID: PMC9251535
16. Mortlock S†, Corona RI, Kho PF, Pharoah P, Seo J-H, Freedman ML, Gayther SA, ...7 authors..., Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium, International Endometriosis Genetics Consortium, Montgomery GW, Lawrenson K*, Kar SP*. A multi-level investigation of the genetic relationship between endometriosis and ovarian cancer histotypes. Cell Rep Med. 2022 Mar 15;3(3):100542. PMID: 35492879 PMCID: PMC9040176
15. Kar SP†*, Considine DPC*, Tyrer JP, Plummer JT, Chen S, Dezem FS, et al. Pleiotropy-guided transcriptome imputation from normal and tumor tissues identifies candidate susceptibility genes for breast and ovarian cancer. Hum Genet Genomics Adv. 2021 Jul 8;2(3):100042. PMID: 34317694 PMCID: PMC8312632
14. Considine DPC, Jia G, Shu X, Schildkraut JM, Pharoah PDP, Zheng W, and Kar SP† for the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium. Genetically predicted circulating protein biomarkers and ovarian cancer risk. Gynecol Oncol. 2021 Feb;160(2):506–13. PMID: 33246661 PMCID: PMC7855757
13. Kar SP†, Brenner H, Giles GG, Huo D, Milne RL, Rennert G, et al. Body mass index and the association between low-density lipoprotein cholesterol as predicted by HMGCR genetic variants and breast cancer risk. Int J Epidemiol. 2019 Oct 1;48(5):1727–30. PMID: 30929013 (open access)
12. Lawrenson K*, Song F*, Hazelett DJ*, Kar SP*, Tyrer J, Phelan CM, et al. Genome-wide association studies identify susceptibility loci for epithelial ovarian cancer in east Asian women. Gynecol Oncol. 2019 May;153(2):343–55. PMID: 30898391 PMCID: PMC6754211
11. Kar SP†, Andrulis IL, Brenner H, Burgess S, Chang-Claude J, Considine D, et al. The association between weight at birth and breast cancer risk revisited using Mendelian randomisation. Eur J Epidemiol.2019 Jun;34(6):591–600. PMID: 30737679 PMCID: PMC6497616
10. Kar SP†, Berchuck A, Gayther SA, Goode EL, Moysich KB, Pearce CL, et al. Common genetic variation and susceptibility to ovarian cancer: Current insights and future directions. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2018 Apr;27(4):395–404. PMID: 28615364 (open access)
9. Michailidou K*, Lindström S*, Dennis J*, Beesley J*, Hui S*, Kar S*, et al. Association analysis identifies 65 new breast cancer risk loci. Nature.2017 Nov 2;551(7678):92–4. PMID: 29059683 PMCID: PMC5798588
8. Kar SP. Addressing underlying causes of violence against doctors in India. Lancet. 2017 May 20;389:1979–80. PMID: 28534749
7. Phelan CM*, Kuchenbaecker KB*, Tyrer JP*, Kar SP*, Lawrenson K*, Winham SJ*, et al. Identification of 12 new susceptibility loci for different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer. Nat Genet. 2017 May;49(5):680–91. PMID: 28346442 PMCID: PMC5612337
6. Kar SP†, Adler E, Tyrer J, Hazelett D, Anton-Culver H, Bandera EV, et al. Enrichment of putative PAX8 target genes at serous epithelial ovarian cancer susceptibility loci. Br J Cancer. 2017 Feb 14;116(4):524–35. PMID: 28103614 PMCID: PMC5318969
5. Lawrenson K*, Kar S*, McCue K, Kuchenbaeker K, Michailidou K, Tyrer J, et al. Functional mechanisms underlying pleiotropic risk alleles at the 19p13.1 breast-ovarian cancer susceptibility locus. Nat Commun.2016;7:12675. PMID: 27601076 PMCID: PMC5023955
4. Kar SP*†, Beesley J*, Amin Al Olama A*, Michailidou K*, Tyrer J*, Kote-Jarai Zs, et al. Genome-wide meta-analyses of breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer association studies identify multiple new susceptibility loci shared by at least two cancer types. Cancer Discov. 2016 Sep;6(9):1052–67. PMID: 27432226 PMCID: PMC5010513
3. Kar SP†, Tyrer JP, Li Q, Lawrenson K, Aben KKH, Anton-Culver H, et al. Network-based integration of GWAS and gene expression identifies a HOX-centric network associated with serous ovarian cancer risk. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2015 Oct;24(10):1574–84. PMID: 26209509 PMCID: PMC4592449
2. Kar SP, Seldin MF, Chen W, Lu E, Hirschfield GM, Invernizzi P, et al. Pathway-based analysis of primary biliary cirrhosis genome-wide association studies. Genes Immun. 2013 Apr;14(3):179–86. PMID: 23392275 PMCID: PMC3780793
1. Kar SP. Research funding: Indian science needs alternative investors. Nature. 2012 May 10;485(7397):174. PMID: 22575949
