Yasodha Natkunam

Yasodha "Yaso" Natkunam (MBBch, FRCPath) is a Sri Lankan Ronald F. Dorfman Professor of Pathology and a Director of Hematopathology at the Stanford University Medical Center.

Natkunam was born in Sri Lanka to pathologist mother and Rajaratnam Natkunam, a retired general surgeon who in 2002 was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia. She obtained an A.B. degree in biology from the Bryn Mawr College in 1987. In 1993, she got her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the same year became a surgery resident and Weill Memorial Fellow in Cancer Research at the same place. In 1996, Yoso had become an intern in the Stanford University School of Medicine and four years later became a Registrar resident at the same place. In 1998, she became certified in anatomical pathology by the American Board of Pathology and in 2006 became a Shalit Fellow at John Radcliffe Hospital.

Research

In 2000, Dr. Natkunam had studied blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm and acute myeloid leukemia and was surprised that it lacked CD7. In 2007, she studied B cell ontogeny and germinal centers in order to prevent apoptosis. In 2017, Natkunam have studied Burkitt's lymphoma, neuroblastomas, sarcomas and other small-blue-round-cell tumors in order to prevent oncogenes to cause cancer.

Editorial work

From 2007 to 2009, Dr. Natkunam was a Section Editor of the Laboratory Investigation journal and from 2007 to 2016 she served on Editorial Board of the Applied Immunohistochemistry and Molecular Morphology and International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Pathology. Currently she is on Editorial Board of the Human Pathology on which she serves since 2008 and on The American Journal of Surgical Pathology on which she serves since 2011.

Humanitarian work

In 2005, Natkunam have volunteered with the International Medical Health Organization to provide aide to Sri Lankans after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

In 2013, Yaso had attended the convention of the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America.