Rate My Professor Citra Praditi

Dr. Citra Praditi is an Assistant Research Fellow in the Department of Pathology and Biomedical Science at the University of Otago, Christchurch, where she conducts research within the Mackenzie Cancer Research Group and the Centre for Free Radical Research. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Otago in 2023, with a thesis titled "The role of ascorbate on the response to hypoxia in breast cancer cells," supervised by Professor Margreet Vissers and Associate Professor Gabi Dachs. Her doctoral work examined the influence of vitamin C, known as ascorbate, on cancer cell responses to low oxygen conditions, including uptake, retention, and interactions with hypoxic signaling pathways. Praditi's research specializations center on the tumor microenvironment, hypoxia, cancer metastasis, and the antioxidant properties of ascorbate. She investigates how ascorbate modulates key pathways such as HIF-mediated responses and epigenetic regulation in various cancers, including breast cancer, glioblastoma, and melanoma.

In recognition of her contributions, Dr. Praditi received a three-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship valued at $300,000 from the Cancer Society of New Zealand in 2025, funded by the MJ Allen Estate. This award supports her project exploring ascorbate's enhancement of KDM activity to prevent genomic instability in melanoma, focusing on its role as a complementary therapy under hypoxic conditions using cell lines and clinical samples. Her key publications include: Praditi et al. (2025), "Iron content of glioblastoma tumours and role of ferrous iron in the hypoxic response in vitro," published in Frontiers in Oncology; Burgess et al. (2025), "Role of sodium-dependent vitamin C transporter-2 and ascorbate in regulating the hypoxic pathway in cultured glioblastoma cells," in the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, where she is a joint first author; and Praditi et al. (2023), "Ascorbate Uptake and Retention by Breast Cancer Cell Lines and the Intracellular Distribution of Sodium-Dependent Vitamin C Transporter 2," in Antioxidants. She also contributed a conference abstract at the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 50th Anniversary Conference in 2023 on ascorbate's activation of hypoxic responses in breast cancer cells. Through these efforts, Praditi advances understanding of ascorbate's potential in cancer therapies.