Research Trainee Spotlight: Rashmi Joshi, PhD
When Rashmi Joshi, PhD, began her master’s program in cell biology at the University of Connecticut, she decided to join a lab “out of pure curiosity.” Soon, her love of research was born.
“I realized how much I enjoyed the process of doing experiments and analyzing data,” Dr. Joshi shares. “The most enriching aspect of research is each one of us adding little bits of information to the existing and ever-growing knowledge base.”
Today, she is aiming to add knowledge to a relatively new area of research: how stress is passed down biologically through the generations. As a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Brian Dias, PhD, she aims to answer this question by harnessing her expertise in epigenetics—chemical changes to the genome that determine whether certain genes are turned on or off.
“In males, stress induces certain epigenetic changes in the sperm, and after fertilization, these are inherited by the offspring,” Dr. Joshi explains. “My goal is to learn how pre-conception paternal stress is inherited, and how it impacts that offspring during early development.”
Born and raised in India, she previously worked at Washington State University before joining CHLA last year. In her free time, she enjoys reading books (usually fiction), going for walks and exploring local coffee shops.
