Dr. Anuradha (Bapsi) Chakravarthy, known better to her patients and colleagues as Bapsi Chak, is a member of the faculty and Residency Director in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Dr. Chak received her Doctor of Medicine degree from the George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Following a residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic she completed a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the University of Maryland and Radiation Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University. She is board certified in both radiation oncology and medical oncology. She has served on several university committees including the Scientific Review Committee, the Institutional Review Board and the Data Safety and Monitoring Board. On a national level, Dr. Chak serves as Radiation Oncology Chair, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group.
Dr. Chak's clinical interests involve treating malignancies of the breast and gastrointestinal tract (esophageal, pancreas, gastric, colorectal, and anal). Her research interests involve the development of markers to predict therapeutic response. Currently we treat many patients empirically with drugs that may benefit the population as a whole but not necessarily the individual. Using new technologies to analyze thousands of genes and proteins simultaneously from tumors, Dr. Chak hopes to identify molecular patterns that will predict an individual's response to specific agents. Dr. Chak works closely with basic scientists to help bring ideas developed in the laboratory directly to patient care. Dr. Chak also works with imaging scientists to determine whether non-invasive tools such as imaging can be used to predict therapeutic outcome.