ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2023
The Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
About the awardee
Raghu R. Chivukula, MD, PhD is an early career physician-scientist whose research program bridges molecular genetics, cell biology, and pulmonary medicine. His long-term goals are to leverage Mendelian pulmonary disorders as model systems for elucidating biological principles underlying rare and common lung disease alike. Dr. Chivukula believes his training and track record positions him well to succeed in these goals. His graduate training provided him with a strong background in molecular genetics and epithelial biology, while his postdoctoral work extended this skillset to include cell biology and biochemistry. Finally, his clinical training as a pulmonologist affords direct experience with the many respiratory disorders which remain mysterious and deadly.
Though early in his independent career, Dr. Chivukula believes he has leveraged his hybrid training to make contributions to respiratory disease biology. These include the identification of a conserved distal lung regenerative process in human acute lung injury and the discovery and characterization of a genetic bronchiectasis syndrome caused by airway signaling dysregulation. Over the past 2 years, his lab has developed and validated new genetic and cell biological tools which allow them to investigate genetic forms of interstitial lung disease in unprecedented subcellular detail; they are hopeful that a molecular understanding of these disorders will facilitate new therapies targeting initiating events in pulmonary fibrosis.
Alongside his research efforts, Dr. Chivukula attends to patients in the intensive care unit and lectures undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate learners – striving to cultivate curiosity about basic mechanisms of disease in clinical and scientific trainees. Finally, Dr. Chivukula helps lead the MGH Pathways program, through which residents are mentored in identifying unusual “n=1” patients, thinking deeply about their biology, and bringing these extreme phenotypes into the laboratory for study.