Arin Aurora, Ph.D.

Arin B. Aurora, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from Cornell University and went on to obtain her Ph.D. in immunology from the University of California, San Francisco. She conducted postdoctoral work as an American Cancer Society fellow at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, examining the transcriptional programs regulated by angiogenic inhibitors. Dr. Aurora then continued her postdoctoral work with Dr. Eric Olson at UT Southwestern, where she made important discoveries toward understanding the immunological pathways regulating  mammalian heart repair and regeneration in response to injury.

In 2014, Dr. Aurora joined the faculty of the Children’s Medical Research Institute at UT Southwestern as an Assistant Professor, where she investigated the molecular mechanisms that enable melanoma metastasis. Since 2023, Dr. Aurora has worked as part of a cross-disciplinary team assessing the feasibility of using anticancer small molecules with novel targets for preclinical development. Using a combination of genetic tools, biochemistry, and medicinal chemistry, the team seeks to systematically understand on- and off-target properties of candidate small molecules that impact their efficacy and toxicity. In addition to evaluating small molecules for potential clinical development, these potent and specific tools are used to uncover novel biology.