An Assistant Professor of Medicine, Dr. Gurkar’s interest is in understanding the biology of aging and age-related diseases. Her NIH-funded research focuses on identifying the signaling mechanisms that drive aging in response to endogenous DNA damage. By defining these molecular mechanism(s), she hopes to identify novel therapeutic targets that can be exploited to extend healthspan.
- BS, University of South Florida, Tampa/Florida International University, 2006
- PhD, Boston University, School of Medicine, 2009
- Post-Doctorate, The Scripps Research Institute/Harvard Medical School/MGH/Broad Insitute
Education & Training
Hamsanathan, S., Anthonymuthu, T., Mullett, S.J., Wendell, S.G., Han, S., Shinglot, H., Siefken, E., Sims, A., Sen, P., Pepper, H.L., Snyder, N.W., Bayir, H., Kagan, V., Gurkar, A.U. Persistent DNA damage rewires lipid metabolism and promotes histone hyperacetylation via MYS-1/Tip60. Biorxiv. 2021
Hamsanathan, S., Anthonymuthu, T., Prosser, D., Lokshin, A., Greenspan, S.L., Resnick, N.M., Perera, S., Narasimhan, G., Gurkar, A.U. A Molecular Index for Biological Age identified from the Metabolome and Senescence-associated Secretome in Humans. Research Square. 2020
Gurkar, A.U., Robinson, A.R., Cui, Y., Li, X., Webster, A., Muravia, M., Fallahi, M., Weissbach, H., Robbins, P.D., Wang, Y., Kelley, E.E., Croix, C.M.S., Niedernhofer, L.J., Gill, M.S. Dysregulation of DAF-16/FOXO3A-mediated stress responses accelerates oxidative DNA damage induced aging. Redox Biology. 2018; 18: 191-199.
Niedernhofer, L.J., Gurkar, A.U., Wang, Y., Vijg, J., Hoeijmakers, J.H.J., Robbins, P.D. Nuclear Genomic Instability and Aging. Annual Review of Biochemistry. 2018; 87: 295-322.
Zhu, Y., Tchkonia, T., Pirtskhalava, T., Gower, A.C., Ding, H., Giorgadze, N., Palmer, A.K., Ikeno, Y., Hubbard, G.B., Lenburg, M., O'Hara, S.P., LaRusso, N.F., Miller, J.D., Roos, C.M., Verzosa, G.C., LeBrasseur, N.E., Wren, J.D., Farr, J.N., Khosla, S., Stout, M.B., McGowan, S.J., Fuhrmann-Stroissnigg, H., Gurkar, A.U., Zhao, J., Colangelo, D. The Achilles' heel of senescent cells: from transcriptome to senolytic drugs. Aging Cell. 2015; 14(4): 644-658.
- First prize- Bench Junior Faculty, Aging Institute Research Day, University of Pittsburgh, 2018
- TEDxPittsburgh: Brilliant and Bold Women, 2019
- Ad-hoc Grant Reviewer, The Dutch Research Council (NOW), 2020
- Finding Genius Podcast: Molecular Mechanisms of Aging, 2020
- Ad-hoc Reviewer, Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE), 2020
- Ad-hoc Reviewer, Inspire Grants to Develop Geroscience Research Programs, 2020
- Ad-hoc Reviewer, CMAD study section NIH, 2021
- Ad-hoc Reviewer, ZAG1 ZIJ-R J3 study section, NIH, 2021
- Ad-hoc Reviewer, National Science Foundation, 2022
- Co-Editor, Special Issue C. elegans, Automation, Machine learning and AI. Frontiers in Aging, 2022
