Introduction by Director Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, PhD

Welcome to the Summer 2023 issue of The Dish. This time of year is always exciting and somewhat bittersweet for all of us at Penn BGS, as we bid farewell to our graduating class and celebrate their many accomplishments and bright futures.

We honored BGS graduates on Monday, May 15, with a ceremony in the Smilow Center for Translational Research. We invite you to watch a recording of the ceremony here. view photos below, and read profiles of our graduates here.

We also celebrated the 2023 recipients of the Saul Winegrad Award for Outstanding Dissertation. This award was established in 1995 in honor of the founding Director of BGS, Saul Winegrad, MD, and recognizes in each graduate group a dissertation of outstanding quality that makes a significant contribution to biomedical science. This year’s recipients are:

·        Peter J. Carman, PhD – Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics

·        Sylvia G. Stankov, PhD – Cell and Molecular Biology

·        Vincent H. Wu, PhD – Cell and Molecular Biology

·        Sarah M. Weinstein, PhD – Epidemiology and Biostatistics

·        William Bone, PhD – Genomics and Computational Biology

·        Rina Kim, PhD – Immunology

·        Nitsan Goldstein, PhD – Neuroscience

·        Ryan D. Paulukinas, PhD – Pharmacology

Our Winegrad Award winner for Immunology, Rina Kim, GR’23, also received this year's Dr. Andy Binns Impact Award for Outstanding Service to Graduate and Professional Student Life. This award is presented to a graduate whose outstanding service has significantly impacted student life at Penn, and Rina was recognized for her leadership in BGSA, which included advocating for and fostering student engagement during a period of transitioning back to campus, as well as co-founding and leading the Immunology Graduate Student Association (IGA). We are so proud of Rina and all of her Penn BGS classmates, and we look forward to witnessing their accomplishments as they continue their professional careers.

This issue of The Dish continues the celebration of BGS accomplishments with profiles of a current student and an alumna. Venkata (Sai) Chaluvadi, GR’27, M’27, a fourth-year MD-PhD candidate in Penn’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), is studying the role of diseased immune cells in the progression of Krabbe disease, a rare neurodegenerative condition. Shivon Robinson, GR’16, who received her PhD in neuroscience and completed a postdoctoral fellowship here at Penn, set her sights on a career teaching neuroscience to undergraduates at a small liberal arts institution—and today is an assistant professor at her own undergraduate alma mater, Williams College. Sai and Shivon’s stories exemplify the focus, hard work, and relentless drive of BGS students, as well as the guidance and support they receive from our outstanding faculty and incredible network of alumni and friends.

Thank you for your steadfast support of BGS. Our students represent the future of their respective fields, and our community of supporters ensures their success—and amplifies the remarkable impact their work will have on the world. We are so grateful for the critical role you play in helping them reach their goals. 

I hope you enjoy this issue of The Dish. Have a wonderful summer!

Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, PhD
Professor of Pathology, Department of Oral Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Director, Biomedical Graduate Studies, Perelman School of Medicine

Student Spotlight: Venkata (Sai) Chaluvadi, GR’27, M’27

Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) physician-scientist trainees make brilliant contributions to their many fields in many ways. The common thread? Mentorship that guides ‘crazy ideas’ into powerful science. Thanks to mentors throughout his life, Venkata (Sai) Chaluvadi, GR’27, M’27, is shaping his dreams into medical innovations with the potential to improve the lives of patients and families.

Sai is currently a fourth-year MD-PhD candidate in the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) working towards a PhD in Neuroscience. He feels incredibly fortunate to be studying at Penn and has really enjoyed his time thus far in the MSTP program. “It’s been a super collaborative experience. On my floor I'm able to walk into anyone's office and start talking about my science, and they're willing to help me out and offer me resources and ideas. It makes anything possible.”

Originally from Nellore, India, Sai moved with his family to a small, tight-knit community in upstate New York when he was five years old. He grew up in a supportive family environment and credits his parents with providing him the resources and opportunities he needed to pursue a career in science and medicine. It was while participating in the New York State Science Olympiad in high school that he first learned about the inner workings of the nervous and immune systems—an experience that ignited his interest in neuroimmunology.

During his undergraduate studies at New York University, Sai’s encounters with clinical work solidified his interest in medicine. His mentors, Susan Schwab, PhD, and Victoria Fang, MD, PhD, changed the trajectory of his life by teaching him how to connect the clinic with the laboratory, combining his scientific curiosity with his interest in improving patient outcomes. While working in Dr. Schwab’s lab, Sai helped discover the roles of S1P in immune cell trafficking and function, which resulted in publications in Nature and Nature Immunology. He knew he wanted to pursue a career as a physician-scientist and eventually decided to matriculate at Penn, despite being intent on staying close to his family and friends in New York. Sai explains, “Penn just offered a lot of really dynamic opportunities to work with accomplished physician-scientists and experience life in a new city.”

Sai is now a member of the Frederick “Chris” Bennett Lab at the University of Pennsylvania and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The Bennett Lab focuses on understanding the roles of brain-resident immune cells called microglia in health and disease to develop cell therapies for largely incurable neurodegenerative conditions. Sai is studying how diseased immune cells contribute to the progression of Krabbe (crab-A) disease — a rare and fatal neurodegenerative condition in which lipids build up in children’s brains. Unfortunately, available therapies are limited, and these young patients die within a few years.

Sai’s project will shed light on how lipid accumulation in microglia alters their function and promotes harmful inflammation. Ultimately, he hopes to use these insights to develop new immunotherapies for Krabbe patients and extend their lives. Because Krabbe disease is a rare disease affecting only 1 in 100,000 individuals diagnosed in the United States, very little research exists. Sai has been building from the ground up, which he describes as an exciting opportunity.

Working with his mentor, Dr. Bennett, has been a fantastic experience for Sai. “He’s one of the most thoughtful, supportive, kind, and invested mentors I’ve ever had,” he says. “I always leave meetings with him feeling super motivated and inspired. Many experiments, or ‘crazy ideas,’ don’t work out, which can leave me feeling demoralized, but Dr. Bennett always lifts my spirits, assures me that failure is part of the process, and focuses on how I am becoming a better scientist. He does an excellent job of keeping me grounded while encouraging me to chase my dream ideas. He’s my number one supporter.”

Describing his experience mentoring Sai, Dr. Bennett says, "Sai has a unique combination of intelligence, creativity, determination, kindness, and empathy. He strives to tackle the most important scientific questions, however challenging, but finds ways to include mentoring undergraduates and the support of his peers in this pursuit. This generativity contributes enormously to our lab's culture and intellectual environment, makes Sai a pleasure to mentor, and exemplifies how to enhance individual success by enhancing team success."

Sai wants to pay it forward by emulating Dr. Bennett’s mentorship approach with the three undergraduate mentees he is currently coaching. He helps the undergraduates apply for grants and prepare posters, and teaches them how to design experiments, keep organized, and perform research techniques. “Seeing their growth has been really cool, and by mentoring them I’ve learned how to do things better myself.”

Sai recently won the 2022 Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation, which celebrates the ingenuity of young scientists who are early in their careers but already on the brink of the next big scientific breakthroughs. His proposal to create a remote-control immunotherapy for cancer won the grand prize of $50,000 in the graduate student category. Sai hopes that someday he can make this dream project a reality.

Sai’s immediate goal is to complete his thesis work, and he hopes to discover something meaningful and impactful that moves the Krabbe field forward. In the long term he wants to become a physician-scientist and start a lab focused on treating and curing brain disease, while also caring for pediatric patients and their families.

“I want to change the landscape of patient care for people suffering from neurologic conditions,” Sai says. “These brain disorders are incredibly devastating and affect people in ways that we can't even imagine. Therapies are limited but the tools are finally here to learn deeply about the biology underlying these conditions. I hope that my colleagues and I can make meaningful contributions that improve lives.”

Alumni Spotlight: Shivon A. Robinson, GR’16

Shivon A. Robinson, GR’16, first discovered her passion for neuroscience as an undergraduate at Williams College. As a participant in Williams’ Summer Science Program, she spent eight weeks immersed in research and mentorship as an assistant in a lab focused on neurodevelopment and how early life experiences shape behavior over time. Gradually, Shivon’s career path became vividly apparent—and brought her full circle. Bolstered by her Penn BGS experience, Shivon is now an assistant professor of psychology at Williams, mentoring and inspiring her own students as her teachers mentored and inspired her.  

“As an undergraduate, I gained a sense of what an academic career looks like,” she says. “Having that experience so early on was super influential.”

When it came time to explore graduate school options, Shivon was struck by the exceptionally supportive community of Penn BGS.

“Obviously there are fantastic faculty and institutions all around the country,” she says. “But I was really drawn to the sense of community within the BGS program, specifically the neuroscience graduate group (NGG). The students I spoke to during my interview were welcoming, honest, and engaged. And the faculty showed an interest in and commitment to working with students, making them feel comfortable and guiding them in their journey. That was really important to me.”

Shivon’s graduate work focused on understanding the neural mechanisms that underlie motivation for natural rewards; how motivation is impacted by stress; and how it can potentially be reversed through the use of pharmacotherapies. She worked with Irwin Lucki, PhD, former director of the Behavioral Psychopharmacology Laboratory at PSOM, a mentor who she says encouraged her to take risks and who was always willing to engage in dialogue about her ideas. Dr. Lucki also was supportive of her plan to work with undergraduates herself, and encouraged her to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship. 

“Our conversations were always more of a back and forth,” Shivon says. “I really enjoyed that intellectual aspect of it. I was able to make mistakes—and I made a lot of mistakes. I think it was good for me to have that experience because moving into my postdoc, and now as faculty myself, I’m able to troubleshoot and think through things and not feel defeated when things don't work. A lot of those lessons I learned in graduate school with an advisor who was open to me having those experiences. Every time I went into his office, I left feeling super inspired.”

While pursuing her research and coursework in BGS, Shivon was involved in the Biomedical Graduate Student Association (BGSA) and participated in community outreach through NGG’s Graduate-Led Initiatives and Activities (GLIA) program, which is dedicated to the personal and professional development of Penn neuroscience graduate students. As part of GLIA, she and a team of graduate students developed and taught an Upward Bound summer neuroscience course for Philadelphia high school students from low-income or underrepresented groups. She says all of these experiences prepared her for the job market.

“I appreciated that BGS provides those opportunities to students,” Shivon says. “It was an important aspect of my education for me that beyond conducting research, we were also doing these activities and initiatives that bring in people from the community and get them excited and interested in science.”

After earning her PhD in neuroscience, Shivon completed a Penn-Postdoctoral Opportunities in Research and Teaching (PennPORT) postdoctoral fellowship. PennPORT is an NIH-sponsored Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) postdoctoral fellowship that combines a traditional mentored postdoctoral research experience at Penn with a mentored teaching experience at a partnering institution. In addition to conducting research focused on neonatal opioid exposure and how early life exposure impacts development over time, Shivon taught an introductory biology course at Delaware County Community College and a course about the neuroscience of opioids at Rutgers University–Camden.

Shivon’s postdoctoral advisor, Julie A. Blendy, PhD, offered support and guidance as Shivon navigated the postdoc, a unique and rewarding experience that was also “a lot of work.”  

“As a PennPORT fellow engaged in both teaching and experimentation, Shivon quickly learned how to multi-task and be efficient with her time,” says Dr. Blendy. “With her army of undergraduate researchers, she was amazing at keeping them on task and interested in the project. She was more of a colleague for me during this time than a trainee, and I am grateful to have had the chance to work with her.”

Says Shivon: “I talked to Julie early on about what my goals were and how I wanted to set up a research program that I could take to an undergrad-serving institution, while also developing my teaching skills and my mentoring skills. She was super supportive of that and made sure I was getting those experiences mentoring undergrads in the lab and basically practicing what this would look like for me as faculty.”

Today, Shivon is no longer practicing. She has accomplished her goal, teaching several undergraduate courses at Williams, including an overview of the field of neuroscience; a course that examines the science of opioids and the historical and societal context surrounding their use and abuse; and a course that explores the psychological, environmental, and biological variables that shape an individual’s response to stress and adversity.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity to get students interested in and excited about neuroscience, even if they don’t end up doing anything else with it,” she says.

Shivon keeps in touch with her mentors and her BGS classmates, some of whom serve as resources for her undergraduate students at Williams as they explore STEM-related career opportunities.

“I love that I have this network of BGS alumni who have pursued so many different types of interesting and fulfilling careers, and that I can reach out to them when I’m trying to mentor my students and help them think of what their post-Williams life is going to be like,” Shivon says. “Mentorship is just such a huge component of this career. Keeping that network close and expanding it have been important lessons I learned from BGS, and I continue to rely on those relationships.”

Make a Difference: Give to the BGS Fellowship Fund Today

The incredible research happening here at Penn wouldn’t be possible without our graduate students. If you would like to support the BGS students’ efforts and ensure future generations of scientists have similar opportunities — especially in these times of constant change — we ask that you consider making a gift to the BGS Fellowship Fund. Your support provides our students with the resources they need to open new frontiers of scientific discovery.

You can make a gift online or send a check payable to "The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania" and include “Biomedical Graduate Studies Fellowship Fund” in the memo line. Mail it to:

Penn Medicine Development
c/o Amelia Klein
3535 Market Street, Suite 750
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Thank you for your partnership.

2023 Biomedical Graduate Studies Graduation Photo Gallery