Ashani Weeraratna facts for kids

Ashani Tanuja Weeraratna (born in 1970) is a scientist from Sri Lanka. She studies cancer, especially a type called melanoma. Her discoveries help us understand how melanoma tumors grow.

Dr. Weeraratna is a special professor at Johns Hopkins University. She leads the biochemistry and molecular biology department. She is also part of the National Cancer Advisory Board. This board gives advice to the National Cancer Institute.

Before joining Johns Hopkins, she worked at the Wistar Institute. There, she was a full professor. She also led a program about how the body's immune system and environment affect cancer.

Early Life and Education

Ashani Weeraratna was born in Sri Lanka. She grew up in Lesotho, a country in Southern Africa. From age 15, she knew she wanted to study cancer.

In 1988, when she was 17, she left Southern Africa. She moved to the United States to study biology. She went to St. Mary's College of Maryland. She earned her first degree in 1991.

Later, she studied at George Washington University. She earned a Master's degree in 1997. In 1998, she earned her Ph.D. Her Ph.D. research was about prostate cancer.

After her Ph.D., she did more training. From 1998 to 2000, she worked at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. She then joined the National Institutes of Health. There, she studied a molecule called Wnt5A. She spent many years learning how Wnt5A affects melanoma.

Career

Cancer Research

In 2007, Dr. Weeraratna worked at the National Institute on Aging. She joined the Wistar Institute in 2011. She started as an assistant professor. She later became a leader of a program there. This program focused on how the area around a tumor affects its growth.

In 2014, she received an important grant from the National Cancer Institute. This money helped her research. In 2015, her work looked at how aging affects skin. She studied how these changes can make tumors grow differently.

In 2016, she became the Ira Brind associate professor. The head of the Wistar Institute praised her work. He said she was changing how we understand melanoma. Her team works to prevent and treat this serious disease.

By 2018, Dr. Weeraratna led her own lab at the Wistar Institute. Her lab studies how melanoma spreads. They look at specific pathways, like the Wnt signaling pathway. She also studies how changes in the tumor's environment, like aging, affect melanoma growth. This research helps find ways to make treatments work better.

In 2018, she became a full professor. She also co-led the Immunology, Microenvironment, and Metastasis Program. Until 2018, she directed the Cancer Biology Ph.D. program. This program was at the University of the Sciences.

In 2019, Dr. Weeraratna moved to Johns Hopkins University. She became a special professor of cancer biology. She is the first woman to lead the biochemistry and molecular biology department. At Johns Hopkins, she continues her melanoma research. She also works to expand programs about aging and cancer. She also works with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

In 2020, she became the president of the Society of Melanoma Research. In September 2021, President Joe Biden chose her for the National Cancer Advisory Board. This board helps guide the national cancer program.

Activism

In June 2018, Dr. Weeraratna spoke at a public event. She shared her own story of moving to the U.S. without family. She talked about the challenges she faced. She highlighted how immigrants contribute to science and the economy. She encouraged everyone to use their right to vote. She explained that as an immigrant, she only recently gained this right.

Selected works

• Pubmed citations
• Google Scholar citations

Books

• Is Cancer Inevitable?, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021.

Selected Articles