Gargi Mishra, an MD/PhD student at SUNY Upstate Medical University has been awarded with an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship to help fund her studies for the next two years. Mishra is a member of Xin Jie Chen, PhD’s lab in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology.

Gargi Mishra, SUNY Upstate MD/PhD student, has received a Predoctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association to study the impact of the dysfunction of mitochondria in cells, and how it can contribute to heart disease.

Mishra was chosen by the AHA on the strength of her proposal to study the impact of the dysfunction of mitochondria in cells, and how this can contribute to heart disease. While the mitochondria require about 1500 different proteins to function, they have to import them to fuel the body’s organs.

“If import is halted perhaps by a protein getting clogged in a transport channel, mitochondria cannot function properly,” explains Mishra. “This phenomenon is like a clogged sink causing a flooded kitchen.” She plans on using yeast to mimic the process and try to prevent or reverse protein clogging. She’s hoping a better understanding of the basic science behind mitochondrial dysfunction can lead to future drug and therapeutic discoveries.

“While there are many drugs that treat heart disease, very few target mitochondrial function in the heart,” says Mishra.

She’s grateful for the emphasis the AHA has placed on basic science research. “The proposal we submitted received an extremely high percentile rank (0.14%) which means not only did the AHA want to fund us, but it prioritized our work to be in the very top pool of all proposals across the nation,” says Mishra. “This has immense impact because “following the science” can lead to discoveries of unexpected connections to real-world problems.”

Gargi Mishra (left) and Dr. Xin Jie Chen (right), Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Upstate.

Mishra is grateful for the support she’s received from SUNY Upstate. “I am grateful to my advisor Dr. Xin Jie Chen for innumerable discussions to help develop this grant, as it went through many different versions before the final. Secondly, my outside reader Dr. Steven D. Hanes provided an extremely critical eye this past summer as I was polishing my proposal which helped me improve its clarity so that it could be understood by a wider scientific audience. The grant writing course, steered by Dr. Leszek Kotula was invaluable as well. Outside of the mentorship with the proposal, I am extremely fortunate for the support provided by the MD-PhD program led by Dr. Amit Dhamoon and our incredible coordinator Andrea Rhea. Their encouragement has allowed me to integrate and balance my PhD work with clinical interests in the fields of PM&R and Neurology – two specialties that I am currently most fascinated by as future career options.”

Mishra, a native of Prune, India, earned her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College, before enrolling at Upstate.

The American Heart Association awards predoctoral fellowships “to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising students who are matriculated in pre-doctoral or clinical health professional degree training programs and who intend careers as scientists, physician-scientists or other clinician-scientists, or related careers aimed at improving global cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and brain health.”