Rate My Professor Ankur Sharma

Ankur Sharma served as Senior Lecturer and Women's Cancer Senior Fellow in the Curtin Medical School, Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University from 2021 to 2024. He earned his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in 2014, receiving the Best PhD Thesis award. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Sharma joined the Genome Institute of Singapore as Research Associate in the Single Cell Systems Domain, where he worked from 2015 to 2020 on pioneering single-cell and spatial genomics research.

During his tenure at Curtin University, Sharma was also Senior Research Fellow at Curtin MRI and affiliated with the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute. He concurrently led the Oncofetal Ecosystem Laboratory as Laboratory Head at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research. His research centers on single-cell genomics, spatial transcriptomics, and genetic fate-mapping to explore phenotypic heterogeneity in cancer cells, with a focus on oncofetal reprogramming in the tumor microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma. Sharma discovered the oncofetal ecosystem in liver cancer, identifying immunosuppressive mechanisms and onco-fetal neighborhoods that influence relapse and immunotherapy response. He led funded projects including the NHMRC Ideas Grant for the DEFINER initiative on precision therapies for liver cancer, a project to predict liver cancer relapse using genomics with BGI-Australia, and research to reduce stillbirths among Aboriginal families. Key publications include "Presence of onco-fetal neighborhoods in hepatocellular carcinoma identifies patients at risk of early relapse and immunotherapy resistance" (2024) and "Immunosuppressive mechanisms of oncofetal reprogramming in the tumor microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma" (2023). Sharma received the CSL Centenary Fellowship in 2024, served as Reviewer of the Month for Annals of Blood in 2021, and holds roles as Senior Editor for Cancer Research and Editorial Board Member for Hepatoma Research. His work has garnered over 3700 citations and advanced therapeutic strategies in oncology through invited lectures at symposia.