Revati Darp
After her masters degree, Revati worked as a research associate at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School before taking up a PhD at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Position: PhD Candidate at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
Programme: MSc (Medical Science)
Research topic: Effects of intra-amniotic treatment with insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) on the IGF axis of intra-uterine growth restricted (IUGR) fetal sheep
Supervisors: Professor Frank Bloomfield and Professor Jane Harding
India-born Revati Darp came to New Zealand in 2000. At The University of Auckland, she completed a BSc in Biomedical Science and a Postgraduate Diploma in Science (Medical Science) before coming to the Liggins Institute and research for her MSc degree.
“During my postgraduate study I really enjoyed the reproductive biology and perinatal and fetal physiology courses taught by Dr Bloomfield and Professor Harding,” says Revati.
“That was one of the main reasons I approached them when it came to choosing a masters project. I had a very interesting project and the expert guidance that I received from them was remarkable,” she adds.
Revati’s research contributed to the Institute’s LiFePATH team’s programme which aims to develop a potential treatment for intrauterine growth retardation, in utero.
She investigated the effects of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) treatment and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) on the molecular aspects of the fetal gut and the left and right lobes of the fetal liver. Her research included the laboratory techniques of real-time PCR, western blotting and immunohistochemistry.
Highlights of her time at the Liggins included presenting her research at conferences in New Zealand and Australia, including the Perinatal Society of New Zealand 27th Annual Scientific Meeting in Auckland for which she won a New Investigator Award in Basic Science. She is also first author on a paper published in the journal Reproduction, Fertility and Development (2010).
Outside of her research and study, Revati volunteered as a Uniguide mentoring new students at the University of Auckland for about four years. She was also a student representative on the Liggins Institute’s Postgraduate Committee.
When she finished her degree, Revati moved to the United States working as a Research Associate at the University of Miami for about nine months, before taking up her Research Associate position at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
Here, she worked in a cancer biology lab on projects focusing on cancer cell quiescence.
After getting some great work experience at Harvard, she went on to fulfill her dream of getting a PhD. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Dr Craig Ceol’s lab at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), Worcester, MA, USA.
As part of her PhD thesis, she is interested in understanding the early cellular events that contribute to tumor initiation and the role of genomic instability in cancer.
In addition to her graduate work, she is a teaching assistant for a science communications course at UMMS, where she teaches and mentors second year PhD students who are preparing for their doctoral candidacy examinations.
Additionally, she is also a board member for Public Relations in a student and post-doc lead group called IndEx at UMMS.
She says she enjoyed the great working environment at the Liggins Institute.
“People were very approachable and friendly, I would love to come back,” she adds.
Explore the current list of masters and doctoral research projects on offer and their supervisors.