The Collaborator
Associate Professor Smita Kulkarni, Ph.D., relishes the diverse opportunities for collaboration at Texas Biomed.
Dr. Kulkarni seeks to understand how pathogens like HIV, SARS-CoV-2, Ebola virus and tuberculosis manipulate sections of the human genome to their advantage. Unlocking those secrets can provide the knowledge needed to develop more effective therapies.
“Texas Biomed is a unique place that can support this type of research – a fundamental interest in regulatory RNAs but in very high containment diseases,” says Dr. Kulkarni, who was promoted to Associate Professor this year. “This work can only be done in a few places.”
Specifically, she teams up with colleagues to untangle how pathogens interact with noncoding RNA – vast sections of the human genome that do not directly code for proteins but regulate the genes that do. The noncoding regions account for 98 percent of the human genome, so there is a lot of ground to cover.
Texas Biomed is a unique place that can support this type of research – a fundamental interest in regulatory RNAs but in very high containment diseases.
Dr. Kulkarni
“We are still discovering genes that we did not know existed because noncoding RNA composition is different in every cell type and changes with stress, stimulation or infection,” Dr. Kulkarni says.
She shares her expertise in noncoding RNA and CRISPR gene editing with others who excel at studying bacteria and viruses in high biosafety level labs. This multidisciplinary, team-science approach increases the potential for making impactful discoveries.
“I have been able to diversify my research and work on diseases at Texas Biomed that I would not otherwise,” she says.
Since joining Texas Biomed in 2016, Dr. Kulkarni has also grown as a principal investigator. She credits training programs at Texas Biomed for helping her learn how to run a lab and improve her grant writing skills. She now serves in mentorship roles and especially enjoys working with up-and-coming scientists early in their careers.
“I always learn more from them than I think they learn from me,” she says. “I provide techniques that help them push their research into new areas, but they are the next generation and have the most up-to-date perspectives.”
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