Sekar Seshagiri Ph.D

President, Science & Education



Somasekar (Sekar) Seshagiri leads SGRF’s scientific research activities and is the driving force behind the foundation’s educational outreach activities including conferences. He chairs SGRF’s Nextgen Genomics, Biology, Bioinformatics and Technologies (NGBT) international meeting

A resident of San Francisco Bay Area, Seshagiri is Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer for ModMab Therapeutics. Before that he spent 21 years at Genentech, most recently as Associate Director and Staff Scientist. During his tenure he established a state-of-the-art genomic laboratory, conducted research in cancer and cell signaling areas and participated in drug development.

His research work has been at the forefront of understanding underlying genetic changes in cancer genomes through systematic identification of somatic mutations in large number of cancer types and subtypes using next generation sequencing and other novel techniques. Seshagiri and team have applied computational methods and functional assays to understand the role of cancer specific mutations in oncogenic signaling leading to new target discovery for therapeutic intervention.

He has authored and co-authored over eighty articles in peer-reviewed journals including Science and Nature. Seshagiri holds a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Master of Science in Biotechnology from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. He is also a recipient of a Master of Science (Software Engineering) from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, US and a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, US. He did his postdoctoral work in Oncology and Bioinformatics at Genentech.

Publications