Shipra Agrawal earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry Honors from University of Delhi, and Master’s degree in Biotechnology from Madurai Kamaraj University, followed by her graduate research training and PhD degree from All India Institute of Medical Sciences. She trained with an international expert and pioneer in hepatitis virus biology, Dr. Subrat Panda MD, and elucidated the molecular mechanisms of replication of Hepatitis E virus, involving viral RNA polymerase binding to the 3’ end of its RNA genome.
During her first postdoctoral fellowship at Tufts University, she trained with Dr. Claire Moore PhD, the co-discoverer of RNA Splicing, where she had the privilege to characterize the mRNA polyadenylation machinery and its linkage to the mRNA nuclear export using yeast as a model system. She trained in second postdoctoral fellowship at The Ohio State University with Dr. Charis Eng MD PhD, the co-discoverer of the PTEN gene. She identified novel splice variants of PTEN and reported their putative roles as biomarkers in breast and thyroid cancer patients. She joined the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital as a senior research scientist, where she developed a strong interest and commitment towards studying podocyte biology and glomerular disease. Working collaboratively with clinician scientists and nephrologists in the center, she led studies to elucidate podocyte signaling pathways and biomarkers of steroid resistance in nephrotic syndrome in pediatric patients and authored and served as a co-Investigator on NIH grants.
In 2017, she joined the faculty as Assistant Professor and principal investigator at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and at The Ohio State University. Concurrently, in 2018, she was awarded the American Heart Association Career Development Award, which enabled her to spearhead her independent laboratory research program on studies focused on selective modulation of PPARg to ameliorate nephrotic syndrome, with reduced adipogenesis potential.
In 2022, she joined the Division of Nephrology as an Assistant Professor of Medicine on tenure track, and moved her laboratory to Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University in New York, and gained research funding support from Dialysis Clinic Inc. and SUNY Seed Grant Programs. In 2023, she was awarded an R01 from NIH NIDDK to continue her research work on podocyte biology and glomerular disease. Her research focus has since expanded to areas of understanding and treating podocytopathies and investigating RNA-mediated mechanisms, including the roles of regulatory and non-coding RNAs, and mRNA processing mechanisms such as splicing and polyadenylation.
