I received my Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Florida in 2010 and am currently working as a postdoc at Washington University in St. Louis. The long standing theme of my research has been to understand the cancer molecular mechanisms at the level of chromatin. I studied the gene regulatory mechanisms at PHO5 model system in yeast for my graduate studies. Further, I also developed single molecule methods with DNA Methyltransferases and analyzed the chromatin transitions induced by chromatin remodelers such as Swi/Snf and ISWI in the nucleosome reconstitution systems in vitro. Using the advanced NextGen sequencing and other approaches, I am currently examining the interaction mechanisms of sunlight, DNA, chromatin and underlying epigenetics at tumor suppressor genes leading to pathogenesis of skin cancer in human cell culture systems.  My other interests include entrepreneurship and community outreach and been an active member at The BALSA Foundation and National Postdoctoral Association (NPA).

v  Darst, R.P., Pardo, C.E., Pondugula, S.,Gangaraju, V.K., Nabilsi, N.H., Bartholomew, B. and Kladde, M.P. (2012)Simultaneous single-molecule detection of endogenouw C-5 DNA methylation andchromatin accessibility using MAPit.  Methods Mol Biol. 2012;833:125-41.

v  Dechassa, M.L., Sabri, A., Pondugula, S.,Kassabov, S.R., Kladde, M.P., Bartholomew, B. (2010) SWI/SNF hasintrinsic nucleosome disassembly activity that is dependent on adjacentnucleosomes. Mol. Cell. 38, 590-602.

 * Comments in: Liu, N. and Hayes, J.J. (2010) When push comes to shove: Swi/Snf uses anucleosome to get rid of a nucleosome. Mol. Cell. 38, 484-486. 

v  Pondugula, S.,Neef, D.W., Voth, W.P., Darst, R.P., Dhasarathy, A., Reynolds, M.M., Takahata,S., Stillman, D.J. and Kladde, M.P. (2009) Couplingphosphate homeostasis to cellcycle-specific transcription: mitotic activation of S.cerevisiae PHO5 by Mcm1 and forkhead proteins.Mol. Cell. Biol. 29, 4891-4905.

v  Pardo, C., Hoose, S.A., Pondugula, S. and Kladde, M.P. (2009) DNAmethyltransferase probing of chromatin structure within populations and onsingle molecules. Meth.Mol Biol. 2009;523:41-65.

v  Pondugula, S.and Kladde, M.P. (2008) Single-molecule analysis of chromatin structure:changing the view of genomes one molecule at a time. J. Cell. Biochem. 105,330-337.