Kirti Karunakaran

Thesis Project Titled: Investigating the role of epigenetic changes in diabetes leads to susceptibility to infections. 

Kirti A.  Karunakaran is from Atlanta Georgia and studied at Georgia Institute of Technology where she received her Master's and Bachelor’s in Biology. After her master’s, Kirti worked as a Lead Research Specialist at Emory Primate Research Center in the lab of Dr. Steven Bosinger. Her worked involved examining pDC depletion in chronically infected SIV rhesus macaques, creating a B-Cell sequencing library, and testing the protective effects of a broadly neutralizing antibody in SARS-CoV2 infected rhesus macaques. Kirti joined Vanderbilt University through the IGP program in 2023 and joined the Serezani Lab in 2024. 

She plans to study the epigenetic changes that occur during hyperglycemia that is present in diabetes that causes susceptibility to sepsis infections. Research has shown that despite glucose monitoring and insulin therapy, many people with diabetes live in a state of hyperglycemia. In addition, previous work has shown that diabetic individuals tend to be predisposed to systemic infections such as sepsis. A key component is the presence of leukotrienes specifically LTB4 whose high production has been associated with inflammatory diseases. Her project aims to examine how LTB4 activation in diabetic conditions promotes an intense but ineffective inflammatory responses.

Mentor: Carlos Henrique Serezani, PhD