Priya Rajasethupathy

Priya Rajasethupathy is a neuroscientist and assistant professor at the Rockefeller University, leading the Laboratory of Neural Dynamics and Cognition.

Priya Rajasethupathy
Alma materCornell University, BA, 2004
Columbia University, MD-PhD, 2013
AwardsSearle Scholar, NIH Director's New Innovator Award
Scientific career
FieldsNeuroscience
InstitutionsStanford University
Rockefeller University
ThesisNovel Small-RNA Mediated Gene Regulatory Mechanisms for Long-Term Memory (2012)
Doctoral advisorEric Kandel
InfluencesKarl Deisseroth
WebsiteResearch website

Education and early career

Priya Rajasethupathy grew up in Brockport, New York.[1] She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in biology with a pre-medicine concentration from Cornell University in 2004. For her undergraduate thesis, she identified Aptamers that provided structural and functional insight into therapeutic compounds for epilepsy[2][3]. Following her Bachelors, she moved to India for a year to work with people with mental illness, while also conducting neuroscience research at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore.[4] She then attended Columbia University for her MD–PhD degree. She did her doctoral work under the mentorship of Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel where she used California sea slugs (Aplysia californica) as a model organism to understand how small non-coding RNA molecules in nerve cells regulate the formation and storage of memories. During her doctoral career, she discovered a brain-specific and highly conserved micro RNA (miR-124) that is abundant in the central nervous system (CNS) of sea slugs and that is important for establishing synaptic plasticity, or the ability of neuronal connections to strengthen and weaken over time.[5][6] Rajasethupathy later identified a new class of small non-coding RNAs in the CNS – piRNAs – which were thought to be present only in germ cells and germline tissues.[7][8] Furthermore, she found that piRNAs can epigenetically modify DNA to enable long-lasting changes in synaptic strength, which may provide insight into the maintenance of long-term memories.

Following her graduate career, Rajasethupathy began a postdoctoral fellowship in 2013 in the laboratory of Karl Deisseroth, a pioneer in the field of optogenetics.[9] There, she discovered a novel brain pathway from the prefrontal cortex to hippocampus that is required for memory retrieval.[10][11] She used mice as a model organism and employed techniques in optogenetics to control and monitor individual neurons in living tissue, two-photon excitation microscopy to image living tissue, and volumetric gene expression profiles of intact brain to understand how the gene expression directs brain activity during behavior.[12] Her postdoctoral work earned her recognition from Science News, who named her one of their top 10 early career scientists in 2015.[4]

Research

In 2017, Rajasethupathy was appointed the Jonathan M. Nelson Family Assistant Professor and head of the Laboratory of Neural Dynamics & Cognition at the Rockefeller University.[10] Her lab continues research into how memories form, stabilize, and re-organize over time by observing and manipulating neural circuitry while monitoring the behavior of animals performing tasks that require the storage or retrieval of memories.[13] Her research is supported by an NIH Director's New Innovator Award, which supports high risk, high reward projects driven by young scientists with $2.5 million awarded over the course of five years.[14]

Selected publications
  1. Rajasethupathy, P. et al. Targeting neural circuits. Cell 165, 524–534 (2016).[15]
  2. Sylwestrak, E.L. et al. Multiplexed intact-tissue transcriptional analysis at cellular resolution. Cell 164, 792–804 (2016)[16]
  3. Rajasethupathy, P. et al. Projections from neocortex mediate top-down control of memory retrieval. Nature 526, 653–659 (2015).[17]
  4. Rajasethupathy, P. et al. A role for neuronal piRNAs in the epigenetic control of memory-related synaptic plasticity. Cell 149, 693–707 (2012)[18]
  5. Rajasethupathy, P. et al. Characterization of small RNAs in Aplysia reveals a role for miR-124 in constraining synaptic plasticity through CREB. Neuron 63, 803–817 (2009).[19]

Awards and honors
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References
  1. "Seek – Priya Rajasethupathy". seek.rockefeller.edu. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
  2. "Seek – Priya Rajasethupathy". seek.rockefeller.edu. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
  3. Cui, Yang; Rajasethupathy, Priyamvada; Hess, George P. (2004-12-01). "Selection of Stable RNA Molecules that Can Regulate the Channel-Opening Equilibrium of the Membrane-Bound γ-Aminobutyric Acid Receptor". Biochemistry. 43 (51): 16442–16449. doi:10.1021/bi048667b. ISSN 0006-2960. PMID 15610038.
  4. Wayman, Erin (2016-03-06). "Priya Rajasethupathy: Memories mark DNA". Science News. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
  5. Rajasethupathy, Priyamvada; Fiumara, Ferdinando; Sheridan, Robert; Betel, Doron; Puthanveettil, Sathyanarayanan V.; Russo, James J.; Sander, Chris; Tuschl, Thomas; Kandel, Eric (2009-09-24). "Characterization of small RNAs in Aplysia reveals a role for miR-124 in constraining synaptic plasticity through CREB". Neuron. 63 (6): 803–817. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2009.05.029. ISSN 1097-4199. PMC 2875683. PMID 19778509.
  6. Fischbach, Soren J.; Carew, Thomas J. (2009-09-24). "MicroRNAs in memory processing". Neuron. 63 (6): 714–716. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2009.09.007. ISSN 1097-4199. PMID 19778498.
  7. Moazed, Danesh (April 2012). "A piRNA to Remember". Cell. 149 (3): 512–514. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2012.04.008. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 22541425.
  8. "Cell Press: Cell Press". www.cell.com. Retrieved 2018-12-30.
  9. Gorman, James (2014-04-21). "Brain Control in a Flash of Light". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
  10. "Neurobiologist interested in memory to join Rockefeller faculty". News. Retrieved 2018-12-30.
  11. Rajasethupathy, Priyamvada; Sankaran, Sethuraman; Marshel, James H.; Kim, Christina K.; Ferenczi, Emily; Lee, Soo Yeun; Berndt, Andre; Ramakrishnan, Charu; Jaffe, Anna (2015-10-29). "Projections from neocortex mediate top-down control of memory retrieval". Nature. 526 (7575): 653–659. Bibcode:2015Natur.526..653R. doi:10.1038/nature15389. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 4825678. PMID 26436451.
  12. "NIH Director's New Innovator Award Program – 2017 Award Recipients | NIH Common Fund". commonfund.nih.gov. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
  13. "Priya Rajasethupathy". Our Scientists. Retrieved 2018-12-30.
  14. "Project Information – NIH RePORTER – NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools Expenditures and Results". projectreporter.nih.gov. Retrieved 2018-12-30.
  15. "Priya Rajasethupathy". Our Scientists. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  16. "Priya Rajasethupathy". Our Scientists. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  17. "Priya Rajasethupathy". Our Scientists. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  18. "Priya Rajasethupathy". Our Scientists. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  19. "Priya Rajasethupathy". Our Scientists. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  20. "Recipients of the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award". Fred Hutch. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
  21. "Searle Scholars Program : Priya Rajasethupathy (2018)". www.searlescholars.net. Retrieved 2018-12-31.
  22. "The Esther A. & and Joseph Klingenstein Fund, Inc". www.klingfund.org. Retrieved 2018-12-31.
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