Sunitha Rangaraju is a Research Associate with a Muscular Dystrophy Association Development Grant Fellowship in the lab of Dr. Michael Petrascheck. She was elected and currently serves as the Career Development Co-Chair of the Society of Fellows, at TSRI La Jolla
campus.
What is your background?
I obtained my Ph.D in Biomedical Sciences from University of Florida, Gainesville (Hello, TSRI peers in Florida!). During my Ph.D, I identified protein quality control pathways of therapeutic potential in neurodegenerative disease models. I also determined key pathways that deteriorate with age and worsen disease condition and identified drug candidates to ameliorate the disease phenotypes and biomarkers.
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Tracking Down a Tonic for a Long Life (ScienceMagazine)
Scientists may not yet have found the fountain of youth, but Ye et al. now report on a screen for drugs that can extend life span in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.
Starting with a collection of over 1200 drugs that have or are suspected to have activity in human cells, they identified nearly 60 compounds that extended life span up to 43%.
Many of the compounds targeted proteins that function in signaling pathways between cells, such as hormone or neurotransmitter receptors, particularly those for adrenaline and noradrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, histamine, and serotonin.
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A pharmacological network for lifespan extension in Caenorhabditis elegans (Global Medical Discovery)
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Business skills and knowledge are rarely covered in science PhD coursework. A new organization at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) aims to provide such training and resources for postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and others considering a career in management consulting, venture capitalism, business development or strategic management. Response to its initial events indicates the Scripps Consulting Club (SCC) has found a ready audience.
“Some 50 people came to the California launch meeting and more than 25 showed up at the Florida meeting,” said SCC President Joseph Lai, a fourth-year graduate student in the Gottesfeld lab. “Clearly, there appears to be a demand for exposure to the business world and career options.”
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Daniel Murin of the Ward and Ollmann-Saphire labs, Ruben Martinez of the Baran lab, and Greg Solis of the Petrascheck/Kelly labs at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have received National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships.
The highly competitive fellowships—13,000 submitted applications for 2,000 awards in 2013—recognize and support outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. Fellows receive three years of support as well as international research and professional development opportunities.
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Sunitha Rangaraju, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., was awarded an MDA development grant totaling $180,000 over a period of three years to determine whether compounds that slow certain aspects of aging may be therapeutic in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The biggest known risk factor for ALS is advancing age, suggesting that the processes that contribute to aging also may contribute to ALS. This led Rangaraju and colleagues to hypothesize that compounds that slow the aging process might be valuable as drugs against ALS. To that end, their lab screened more than 89,000 molecules for those that delay aging and extend life span in C. elegans, a small worm that is widely used to study aging.
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