Rohit Thakur, Ph.D.

Dr. Rohit Thakur is a research fellow at the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) in Dr. Kevin Brown’s research laboratory. After completing his undergraduate degree in bioinformatics from Vellore Institute of Technology in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India, Dr. Thakur was awarded the Marie Sklodowska-Curie research fellowship in 2015, for pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Leeds, UK. During his doctoral program, he received formal training in conducting statistical and bioinformatic analysis of complex genomic datasets. After completing his doctorate, Dr. Thakur spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he developed genomic data-based predictors of immunotherapy response in melanoma. He joined LTG as a postdoctoral fellow in 2020 and was promoted to research fellow in 2024. Dr. Thakur mentored several postbaccalaureate fellows and summer interns and received numerous awards, among them a Reviewer’s Choice Award at the American Society of Human Genetics Annual Meeting; a 2021 NCI Director’s Innovation Award; and a 2023 DCEG Informatics Tool Challenge.

In LTG, Dr. Thakur focuses his research on the following: 1) studying melanoma genetic susceptibility via integration of genetic data from genome-wide association studies and functional genomic and epigenomic datasets to identify novel mechanisms of cancer predisposition, development, and progression; 2) studying genetic-environmental risk factor interactions via bioinformatic and statistical analyses of genomic and epigenomic datasets; and 3) leading development of computational tools directly relevant to scientists at DCEG and the larger research community. His mentors are Kevin Brown, Ph.D., LTG, and Mitchell Machiela, Sc.D., M.P.H., of the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch.