Venkatesan Raghavan

5535 Covode street, Apt#2, Pittsburgh, PA-15217 | Mobile: +1-412-708-9295 | email: ver12@pitt.edu

Summary:

Award winning researcher with 4 years of experience in analytical problem solving and life science
research
Effective communicator invited speaker at international conferences, author of many scientific
manuscripts and possesses effective grant writing skills
Keen interest in financial analysis currently enrolled in a graduate level finance program, and holds the
CFA institute investment certificate
Proficient mentor organized graduate level courses and transferred skills to trainees

Education:
Doctor of Philosophy in Integrative Molecular Biology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, USA

GPA: 3.74/4

2011-2015 (expected)

Graduates Diploma in Finance

London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

In progress

2014-2015 (expected)

Bachelors of Technology in Industrial Biotechnology

SASTRA University, India

GPA: 3.94/4

2007-2011

Professional Experience:
Management Consultant with Fourth River Solutions (September 2014 Present)
Consultant with a student driven consulting firm, currently on an engagement with a nationwide Christian
non-profit designing strategic solutions for the sustainable development of their newly acquired asset
Recommendations once implemented, are predicted to increase the profitability of the asset by 250% in
the next 3 years
Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Medicine University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
(September 2011 Present)
Advisor: Dr. Ora A. Weisz
Research: Investigating the physiologic effects of fluid shear stress on endocytosis in proximal tubule
epithelia
o Defined the vision, strategy, experimental design for three novel research projects
o Novel findings represent two first author, high-impact, peer reviewed publications; one first-author
research review, one corresponding author research review; and three conference proceedings. Two
more research manuscripts are in preparation
Mentoring:
o Mentored and transferred technical skills to four trainees clearly established and met short-term
goals
o Organized a graduate level journal club and research roundtable led discussions and derived
thoughtful insights from scientific literature (Course number MSIMB 2050 & 2060)
Thought leadership:
o Discovered a novel mechanism underlying regulation of protein reabsorption in the kidney
o Established productive collaborations that led to my discovery
o Research findings represented the preliminary data for a 1.2 million dollar National Institutes of
Health grant application that was recently funded
Peer- reviewing: Ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Clinical Investigation (Top 0.3% of all Medicine
journals), and AJP Cell Physiology (Top 12% of all Physiology journals)
Rotation Student at the Hillman Cancer Center University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (November 2011
January 2012)
Advisors: Dr. Yuan Chang and Dr. Patrick S. Moore (National Academy of Science Professors)
Research: Dissecting the mechanism underlying EMT mediated by the Merkel Cell Polyoma Virus small
T antigen

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Rotation student at the Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases University of Pittsburgh
(September 2011 November 2011)
Advisor: Dr. Donald B. DeFranco
Research: Defining the differentiation factors that dictate the fate of neuronal stem cells
Research Intern at the Department of Neurology Harvard Medical School (January 2011 July 2011)
Advisor: Dr. Anna M. Krichevsky
Primary Research: Investigating the role of miR-26b in early onset Alzheimers disease
o Defined the role of miR-26b in regulating cell-cycle entry check points in neurons
o Research findings were published in the journal of neuroscience
Secondary project: Delineating the role of miR-10b in human glioma growth
Selected Honors and Awards:

First Place Pitt Health Innovation Case Competition. Part of Steel City Associates the team that won
the health innovation based case competition hosted by the biomedical engineering society (2015)
Predoctoral Excellence in Renal Research Award by the American Physiological Society
Awarded to the best student researcher presenting at Experimental Biology (2015; 1/~40 applicants
International Award)
Stephen L. Phillips Scientific Achievement Award instituted by the University of Pittsburgh to honor
the best student publication of the year. (2014; 1/~140 students)
Third Place in Panther Tank venture capital competition in the University of Pittsburgh (2014)
Travel Award sponsored by Chroma Technologies ASCB annual meeting. (2013)
Travel award sponsored by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. (2013)
Deans Scholarship offered by the University of Pittsburgh. (2011)
Undergraduate research fellowship by SASTRA University for internship at Harvard Medical School.
(2011)
Deans List Merit Scholarship by SASTRA University for academic excellence top 10%. (2008, and
2010)
Summer Research Fellowship by the Indian Academy of Sciences- Fellowship at the Indian Council of
Medical Research. (2010)

Leadership Experience:

Director of Marketing for the Pitt Health Innovation Case Competition PHICC (2015)
o Spearheaded marketing efforts for the health innovation focused business case competition geared
towards advanced degree trainees
o Coordinated pre-event logistics, keynote lectures, and volunteer recruitment
Board Member of the Biology Graduate Students Association (2014 2015)
o Part of the steering committee heading all the association activities for the current academic year
Chair of the oral presentations committee at the BGSA symposium (2013)
o Selected abstracts, nominated judges and anchored the BGSA symposium
Vice president of Biotikos; a student led association for biotechnology students (2009)
o Organized the first intramural technical symposium called IGNYT
Chief organizer of oral presentations at Daksh 09; an inter-collegiate technical fest. (2009)
o Established the executive abstract selection committee, nominated judges and anchored the oral
presentations event

Certificates:

Benchtop to Bedside Innovation Institute, University of Pittsburgh (April 2015)

Claritas Investment Certificate CFA institute (September 2014)
Introduction to financial markets Yale University (through Coursera, May 2014)

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Relevant Technical Skills:

Cell biology: Primary cultures, media optimization, Cell-based assays, DNA transfection and Infection,
CRISPR mediated gene knockout, siRNA and shRNA mediated gene knock down, pharmacological
inhibition of ion channels and GTPases, measurement of kinase activity and Immunocytochemistry
Microscopy: STED microscopy (Super-resolution), TIRF microscopy, Confocal microscopy, Forster
Resonance Energy Transfer Microscopy, Fluorescence Recovery After Photo-bleaching, Intracellular
calcium imaging and live-cell confocal microscopy
Molecular biology and Biochemistry: Radiolabelled ligand internalization assays, Molecular cloning,
protein purification, Western, Immunoprecipitation (GST, Biotin and Nickel bead pulldown techniques),
basic DNA and RNA techniques, Micro-RNA profiling, Real-Time PCR, Nascent RNA Capture, and
ELISA
Statistical analysis tools: statistical analysis using R, Stata and Sigmaplot
Engineering principles: Heat and mass transfer calculations, bioprocess calculations and fluid
mechanics
Bioengineering: In-vivo reconstruction of the renal proximal tubules in parallel plate flow chambers
Programming languages: R, C and C++
Application software: Imaris for quantitative analysis of live-cell imaging data, Metamorph, Image J,
Nikon elements, Adobe CS6 suite and MS office suite
Operating systems: Windows 7 and previous versions and LINUX Ubuntu

Peer Reviewed Publications:

Raghavan V*, Weisz OA. Dysregulation of mechanosensation in the renal tubule and kidney disease.
Am J Physiol Renal Physiol. Invited review (2015). *Corresponding Author. Journal rank: 27/178
Physiology Journals
Raghavan V, Weisz OA. Flow stimulated endocytosis in the proximal tubule. Current Opinions in
Nephrology and Hypertension. In Press (2015). Journal rank: 6/60 Nephrology Journals
Raghavan V, Rbaibi Y, Pastor-Soler N, Carattino MD, Weisz OA. Shear stress dependent regulation of
apical endocytosis in renal proximal tubule epithelia mediated by primary cilia. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 2014 May 27. Journal rank: 3/81 Multidisciplinary journals
Raghavan V*, Mattila PE*, Rbaibi Y*, Baty CJ, Weisz OA. Rab11a-positive compartments in proximal
tubule cells sort fluid phase and membrane cargo. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. 2013 Oct 23. *Equal
contribution. (Featured as an editorial in focus) Journal rank: 9/97 Clinical Biochemistry journals
Absalon S*, Kochanek DM*, Raghavan V, Krichevsky AM. MiR-26b, upregulated in Alzheimer's disease,
activates cell cycle entry, tau-phosphorylation, and apoptosis in postmitotic neurons. J Neurosci. 2013
Sep 11. *Equal contribution. (Highlighted as editors choice) Journal rank: 9/167 Neuroscience journals

Selected Non-Peer Reviewed Publications:

Raghavan V, Rbaibi Y, Pastor-Soler N, Carattino MD, Weisz OA. Flow stimulated apical endocytosis in
proximal tubule epithelia. FASEB J. 2014 Apr 1. Journal rank: 19/283 cell biology journals
Szalinski CM, Raghavan V, Bruns JR, Weisz OA. VAMP7 differentially regulates biosynthetic trafficking
of apical proteins. FASEB J. 2013 Apr 27. Journal rank: 19/283 cell biology journals
Raghavan V, Matilla PE, Rbaibi Y, Weisz OA. Role of Rab11a Positive Compartments in Endocytic
Traffic in Primary Proximal Tubule Cells. FASEB J. 2013 Apr 27. Journal rank: 19/283 cell biology
journals

Manuscripts in Preparation:

Raghavan V, Rbaibi Y, Carattino MD, Weisz OA. Loss of mechanosensation in proximal tubule epithelia
is the cause of low molecular weight proteinuria in Lowe syndrome patients. (2015)
Raghavan V, Rbaibi Y, Carattino F, Carattino MD, Weisz OA. Role of cdc42 in mediating shear stress
dependent endocytic response proximal tubule epithelia. (2015)

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Invited Lectures:

Local Traffic Symposium (Pittsburgh). Title: Shear stress dependent regulation of apical endocytosis in
renal proximal tubule epithelia mediated by primary cilia May 2014
Experimental Biology conference (Epithelial Biology) sponsored by FASEB in Boston. Title: Role of
Rab11a positive compartments in endocytic traffic in proximal tubule epithelia April 2013

Technical Conferences and Presentations:

Experimental Biology Annual Meeting in Boston. Title: Shear Stress Dependent Regulation of Apical
Endocytosis in Renal Proximal Tubule Epithelia March 2015
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) annual meeting in Philadelphia. Title: Shear Stress
Dependant Regulation of Apical Endocytosis in Proximal Tubule Epithelia Mediated By Primary Cilia.
December 2014
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) annual meeting in New Orleans. Title: Flow
stimulated endocytosis in proximal tubule epithelia December 2013
The Pennsylvania Muscle Institute (PMI) symposium at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).
Title: Flow stimulated endocytosis in proximal tubule epithelia October 2013
Presented at the BGSA and Science symposia organized by the University of Pittsburgh 2012,
2013 and 2014

Student Mentoring:

Megan Eshbach (2014 2015), Graduate student

Osama Alshogran (2014), Postdoctoral fellow
Simon P. Yohannes (2014), Second year medical school student
Francisco Carattino (2014), High school junior

Volunteer experience and causes:

Greenpeace USA (2013 Present)

Volunteer member at Association for Indias Development (AID) Pittsburgh (2011 2012)

Relevant Associations:

Elected member Sigma Xi Scientific Honor Society (2014 Present)

Student member of the American Physiological Society (2014 Present)
Student member American Society for Cell Biology (2013 Present)
Pre-doctoral member of the American Heart Association (2012 Present)

Languages:

English (fluent)
Tamil (Native/fluent)
Hindi (fluent)
Telugu (conversational)
Sanskrit (Basic)

Interests:

Photography
Numismatics (pre-colonial India)
Amateur kneeboarding
Classical music

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