Anita Bhagavathula

From exploring research opportunities in her first year to her recent acceptance to present at the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundations Research Conference, Anita Bhagavathula exemplifies the accomplishments of undergraduate researchers working through CURO.

Anita seeks a career in serving low-income and/or rural communities while continuing medically applicable research. And it is those passions that led her to pursue research at UGA and beyond.

Anita has spent the past year working with Genetics professor Dr. Daniel Promislow, whose lab focuses on the effects of aging on genomic and metabolomic network structure and function. But Anita’s relationship with Dr. Promislow began much earlier. “Actually, [he] was the first professor I contacted for possible research opportunities as a freshman at UGA,” Anita recalls, “but at the time, his lab had plenty of student researchers. However, he still offered to meet and discuss potential opportunities for the future.”  Under Dr. Promislow’s mentoring, Anita has gained valuable insight for her upcoming presentation as well as for her future plans.

In addition to her work at UGA, Anita has sustained a long-standing relationship with Emory Children’s Center, pursuing research under the supervision of Dr. David Okou and Dr. Subra Kugathasan, a physician at the Emory Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and a leading researcher in IBD genetics. This work led to Anita's upcoming conference presentation.

Disorders associated with fat malabsorption such as Crohn’s disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) are associated with low serum Vitamin D levels. Although subclinical vitamin D deficiency has been widely described in African Americans, most research data in this field comes from Caucasians with IBD.  Anita sought to examine prevalance rates among African Americans with a diagnosis of IDB. As she explains, “[t]he goal of my research was to determine the prevalence of low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels among African Americans with a diagnosis of IBD compared to disease-free controls.  These results were then compared to serum Vit-D data from Caucasians with IBD.” That work has yielded an invitation to present at a national conference. As Anita notes, “my abstract, Vitamin D deficiency is found in 2/3 of African American population regardless of underlying IBD or not and the Vitamin D levels are not influenced by disease severity or location in AA population, has been accepted as an oral presentation at the 2011 Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation’s Clinical and Research Conference.  [And t]he paper is set to be published in the IBD journal this year.” 
 

How has research helped you develop as a student? How has it deepened your understanding of your discipline?

"I admire how research, regardless of the field, is encouraged at UGA.  I have been involved in research since my first semester here. My first lab experience allowed me to learn basic lab techniques, methods, and procedures for conducting an independent study.  Subsequent research and coursework have deepened my understanding of genetics. My current independent research, however, forced me to think like a scientist from the start. From expanding my understanding of IBD with relevant scientific papers to testing my hypothesis in an independent case controlled study, I grew as a scientist posing questions, comprehending the basis and significance of the data, and presenting it in front of other researchers within the same field."