Elias Chandran, MBBS, FRACP
- Center for Cancer Research
- National Cancer Institute
- Building 10, Room 12C432B
- Bethesda, MD, 20892
- 301-496-1211
- 301-451-5309
- elias.chandran@nih.gov
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Dr. Elias Chandran is a Medical Oncologist with specialist experience and interest in bladder cancer and rare genitourinary malignancies such as penile cancer. He also as a specific interest in mismatch repair deficiency and microsatellite instability. His research is focused on development of new therapeutic strategies for these malignancies, including the novel use of immunotherapies and investigational therapeutic agents such as antibody-drug conjugates.
Areas of Expertise
Elias Chandran, MBBS, FRACP
Research
Dr. Chandran is a clinical researcher studying new therapeutic targets and novel therapies in bladder cancer, upper tract urothelial carcinoma and rare genitourinary malignancies, including penile cancer, testicular cancer, as well as rare subtypes of bladder and kidney cancer.
His current focus also includes mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR) and microsatellite instability (MSI-H) in urothelial carcinoma. Between 2022 and 2024, he led a systematic review and meta-analysis on this disease subset including data from more than 20,000 patients, finding that dMMR and MSI-H are approximately three times more prevalent in upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) than in bladder cancer, and that MSI-H occurs more frequently in localized disease compared to metastatic disease. This study also found that dMMR or MSI-H may confer high sensitivity of urothelial carcinoma to immune checkpoint inhibitors and resistance to chemotherapy. Thus, he is currently developing a clinical trial of immunotherapy in dMMR/MSI-H urothelial carcinoma to improve outcomes in these patients.
Biography
Elias Chandran, MBBS, FRACP
strong>Dr. Chandran received his medical degree with distinction from St. Bartholomew’s and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, UK in 2010. He subsequently gained robust clinical experience across multiple disciplines (internal medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, orthopedics and emergency medicine) as a junior doctor in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and in rural practices and rural hospitals in Malaysia and New Zealand. In 2014, he continued his postgraduate training in a residency program in Internal Medicine followed by a fellowship in Medical Oncology in New Zealand, which he completed in 2020. He spent his final fellowship year as an advanced research fellow in Genitourinary Malignancies in Auckland Hospital, New Zealand. In 2020, Dr. Chandran was New Zealand’s top 3 in the Trainee Research Awards of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) for his research on testicular cancer. After graduating as a medical oncologist in New Zealand, Dr. Chandran came to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Besthesda, Maryland, to undertake a 2-year advanced fellowship program in Genitourinary Malignancies, focusing on bladder cancer and rare genitourinary malignancies as well as prostate cancer under the mentorship of Dr. Andrea Apolo and Dr. Ravi Madan. In 2023, Dr. Chandran accepted the position of Assistant Research Physician in the Bladder Cancer Section of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch at the NCI.
Publications
- Bibliography Link
- My Bibliography (NCBI)
- ORCID
- Researcher ID
- Google Scholar