Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences Fulfills Family Dream

Sandhya Padmanabhan (Ph.D. ’24), a graduate of the Translational Biomedical Sciences program, was inspired to earn a Ph.D. to fulfill her father’s dream. Now, she wants to make a difference in the study of infectious diseases.

ATLANTA — Earning a Ph.D. was more than a desire to pursue higher education for Sandhya Padmanabhan (Ph.D. ’24) — it was a way to fulfill her father’s dream for his family.

Originally from Bangalore, a city in Karnataka in southern India, Padmanabhan is the first in her family to earn a Ph.D. or pursue a research career. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial biotechnology from SASTRA University in Tamil Nadu, India, she has received a Ph.D. in Translational Biomedical Sciences from the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State.

Her father, who holds a master’s degree in electrical and communication engineering, had the opportunity to pursue a Ph.D. when he was younger, but when his own father became ill, he had to give up on his dream and support his family.

“After everything my dad and mom have done for me and my brother growing up, I felt I owed it to him and decided to fulfill his dream by getting a doctorate in his name, which is my last name, Padmanabhan. Over the course of my education I, myself, grew passionate and had the opportunity to explore the concept of research,” Padmanabhan said.

As she begins her career, Padmanabhan’s goal is to make a significant contribution in the field of infectious diseases. She has received an offer to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan.

“I am not sure where my path takes me, but my first step is taking on a postdoctoral scientist role to enhance and diversify my learning, and then either move into the research and development sector in a pharmaceutical company or work in a federal, state or national organization such as the NIH [National Institutes of Health] or the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” she said.

Padmanabhan knew she wanted to pursue a research career after participating in a fellowship in a hospital research lab where she studied gut microbiota and HIV. This experience led to another fellowship at Harvard Medical School where she worked in a renal cell cancer lab as a research trainee.

“These experiences helped me decide to go into biomedical sciences, specifically toward microbiology, which I ended up pursuing for my Ph.D.,” she said.

Padmanabhan began her Ph.D. studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Dr. Cynthia Nau Cornelissen’s lab in Richmond, Va. When Cornelissen accepted a job at Georgia State, Padmanabhan decided to follow her and continue her dissertation research in the Translational Biomedical Sciences program.

One of the biggest obstacles Padmanabhan faced while earning her degree was the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, her lab was closed, and even after reopening, it only operated at 30 percent capacity, she said.

“This really set back my progress with getting data and results for my experiments,” Padmanabhan said. “The following year, 2021, was also difficult due to the lack of some raw materials to complete my experiments, due to manufacturing backlogs from COVID. I would say I lost about two years in making progress with experiments. Toward the end of my Ph.D., it was sometimes hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel and there were times when I felt like giving up. However, due to the support of my lab family and my husband, I was able to push through those times and complete my dissertation successfully.”

Through the Translational Biomedical Sciences program, Padmanabhan enhanced her critical thinking abilities and developed skills related to management, molecular biology, scientific writing and presentations. She also gained an interest in bioinformatics as she learned to better discern her results, Padmanabhan said.

“All these skills have really prepared me for future careers in both the academic and industrial sectors,” Padmanabhan said. “I’m also very grateful to have a wonderful mentor like Dr. Cornelissen. She gave me a lot of independence to grow on my own, but she was also available when I needed help to move forward. She gave me all the resources to pursue my project and encouraged me to attend national and international conferences that have helped me to make fruitful collaborations and connections for my project and career in academia.”

For her dissertation, Padmanabhan worked on gene regulation in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacteria that cause the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea.

“Although both men and women can be equally infected, women tend to have asymptomatic infections and therefore do not seek treatment on time,” Padmanabhan explained. “Despite being around for such a long time, there is still no vaccine available to effectively prevent a gonorrhea infection and antibiotics will soon be ineffective. There is an urgent need for development of a therapeutic strategy, and that piqued my interest. The lack of symptoms in women intrigued me, and I wanted to look more closely to identify key differences between men and women and how that relates to disease.”

Padmanabhan’s research focused on regulation of a particular gene called tdfJ, which was recently identified as an important vaccine candidate against gonorrhea. This gene is regulated by two metals, zinc and iron.

“With my work, we will be able to use tdfJ as a molecular tool to visualize the differences between male and female reproductive systems and potentially catch and treat asymptomatic gonorrhea infections in women sooner,” Padmanabhan said.

She hopes to publish her research in a peer-reviewed journal by this summer or fall.

— Story by LaTina Emerson