The SAHR Membership Committee
Mission:
The Membership Committee of the Society for the South Asian Heart Research (SAHR) is dedicated to developing new and innovative ways to attract new members, retain current members, and encourage diversity and raise awareness about the importance of cardiac health through communications and member engagement. In addition, the committee will do its best to increase the visibility of SAHR and its service to society.
Objectives and goals:
1. Review membership statistics and trends in membership and ensure directed communications to the following groups:
• Memberships obtained for lab members of the SAHR members.
• Conversion of trainees to full membership upon graduation. Develop a mechanism to track student members and convert them to active members shortly after their graduation/professional employment. Consider adding a field for “anticipated graduation date” on the application form and tracking it through the system.
2. Review and recommend new member services.
• Develop and distribute a survey to the SAHR board and/or membership at large to identify services that are desired but not yet provided by SAHR
3. Identify potential new sources for membership.
• Generate an internal (not public) calendar of conferences to which the SAHR board members anticipate attending and distribute SAHR PowerPoint with reminder nudges one week ahead of conference dates.
4. Identify mechanisms for membership retention and promotion.
Frequency of meetings – The Chair of the Committee will provide a report at the Executive Committee Meeting held in conjunction with the SAHR monthly meeting.
Reporting procedures - The Chair of the Membership Committee will report directly to the Executive Committee.
Meet the Team
Chair:
Venkatesh Sundararajan, M.Pharm., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Brief Bio:
Dr. Venkatesh Sundararajan is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology, Pharmacology and Toxicology at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. Dr. Sundararajan obtained his undergraduate and post-graduate degree in Pharmacy from The T.N. Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai, India, one of the well-known and premier Medical Universities and the second largest Health Sciences Universities in India. After obtaining his Ph.D. from Dr. MGR University, Chennai, in collaboration with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where he was awarded the highly competitive Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) senior fellowship that led to various of his seminal works on investigating mitochondrial genetics on Male infertility. He was recognized with numerous awards during his Ph.D. tenure. After defending his thesis, Dr. Sundararajan immediately moved to the United States to pursue his postdoctoral training at Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School to understand the basic mechanisms of how mitochondria contribute to organ health and disease that led to several of his findings in lead journals such as Blood, The American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG), Molecular Cell, Human Molecular Genetics, Nucleic Acid Research, Mitochondrion, Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology (JMCC), American Journal of Physiology-, Circulation Research, Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) and more. On his successful postdoctoral training, he was promoted to Assistant Professor. Recently, Dr. Sundararajan moved to West Virginia University in the School of Medicine as a Tenure track Associate Professor and conducting his own independent research program focusing on the role of mitochondrial protein quality control in protecting the heart against myocardial infarction, Doxorubicin, and Diabetic induced cardiomyopathies. Dr. Sundararajan’s lab is currently supported by two American Heart Association and one NHLBI R01 grant, along with the WVU start-up funds. He is also a co-investigator on another NIH-R01 grant investigating the role of mitochondrial import on diabetic cardiomyopathy. Dr. Sundararajan has published over 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters to his credit and currently serving as Associate Editor, peer-reviewer, and member in journals, study sections, and organizations, respectively.
Vice Chair:
Shubha Gururaja Rao, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Pharmacology
Brief Bio:
Dr. Shubha is currently an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at Ohio Northern University, and she has been studying cell signaling and genetics since her Ph.D. (University of Edinburgh, UK) and during her post-doctoral training at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Shuba’s interests include understanding the role of cell signaling (mainly mitochondria-related) and mechanisms operating in cells during stress, cancer, and aging. Currently, Dr. Shuba is investigating metabolic cell signaling mechanisms operating in cells, both in physiology and disease, focusing on mitochondria. Mitochondria control energy metabolism, free radical generation, and apoptosis, and thus could be key factors in cell survival and function. Her group has previously shown the dynamics of mitochondrial structure and function in growth and uncontrolled cell division. They also characterized and elucidated the mechanism by which an oncogenic pathway, Yap/Yorkie (Yki), regulates the structure and function of mitochondria by increasing mitochondrial fusion and how this regulation is important to control growth. In the recent past, they have also worked on mitochondrial ion channels (chloride and potassium), elucidating their roles in aging and cardiac function.Based on these previous projects, Dr. Shuba’s current research is focused on understanding molecular signaling and genetics involved in the cancer-cardiovascular aging axis and the role of mitochondrial genetics associated with aging heart failure due to cancer. They employ human and animal models to tease out molecular signaling, genetics, and physiology. Dr. Shuba’s lab is currently funded by the American Heart Association, with active undergraduates involved in the lab at the bench and in manuscript writing.
Committee Members
Satvik Mareedu BDS, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow,
Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School,
Newark NJ 07101
Email: sm1629@gsbs.rutgers.edu
Saravanakumar Murugesan, M.S, M.Phil., Ph.D.
Staff Scientist-II,
University of Alabama at Birmingham,
PBMR-352 Birmingham, AL 35294
Email: smurugesan@uabmc.edu
Soumya S Krishnan PhD.
Postdoctoral Research Associate,
State University of New York,
Downstate Medical Center,
Brooklyn, NY 11203