Kiran Musunuru
Born
New York City
Alma materHarvard College (BSc, 1997),
Rockefeller University (PhD, 2003),
Weill Cornell Medicine (MD, 2004),
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (MPH, 2009),
University of Pennsylvania Law School (ML, 2019)
AwardsPresidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
Scientific career
FieldsCardiology, CRISPR gene editing
InstitutionsPerelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania,
Brigham and Women's Hospital,
Johns Hopkins Hospital,
Massachusetts General Hospital,
Broad Institute
Websitehttps://www.kiranmusunuru.com/

Kiran Musunuru is an American cardiologist who is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.[1] He researches the genetics and genomics of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Musunuru is a leading expert in the field of gene-editing.

Early life and education

Musunuru is the son of Rao and Prameela Musunuru; he was born in New York City and grew up in Florida.[2] His father is a renowned cardiologist who moved to the US from India in 1976.[2]

Musunuru obtained a degree in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College in 1997.[1] He later obtained a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Rockefeller University in 2003, and an MD from Weill-Cornell Medical College in 2004.[1] Musunuru also graduated with a Masters of Public Health (MPH) in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2009, and an ML in Law from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2019.[1]

Musunuru was interested in heart disease early in his medical career, first training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and then in Cardiovascular Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital.[3][4] He also undertook postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as the Broad Institute.[3]

Research and career

Musunuru's researches the genetics and genomics of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and is a leading expert in genome-editing techniques, particularly CRISPR-Cas9. His lab was the first to develop an efficient technique to genetically modify human pluripotent stem cells, and differentiate them to model disease.[5] He discovered two novel genes involved in coronary artery disease: SORT1 and ANGPTL3.[5] His research aims to find genetic variants which affect the course of disease and could be used to develop protective therapies.[3] Musunuru ultimately hopes to create a one-shot "vaccination" against heart attacks, which would introduce a complementary, loss-of-function mutation in a gene such as ANGPTL3 to lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in at-risk populations.[2][6]

Musunuru has pioneered the use of genome-editing tools as therapies for heart disease. For example, some people with a variant of the PCSK9 gene have lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels, and therefore have a reduced risk of heart attack.[4] Research from Musunuru's laboratory has shown that the levels of the PCSK9 gene expression could be altered in the liver of mice using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, drastically reducing the mice's cholesterol levels.[4][7] Musunuru has also led research into prenatal gene editing of PCSK9 or HPD using both CRISPR-Cas9 and base editor 3 (BE3), offering a proof-of-concept for a potential new therapeutic approach for congenital genetic disorders.[8][9]

In 2019, Musunuru was among a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania to develop a stem cell-based test for the effect of genetic variants on heart muscle cells.[10][11] They used the test to determine that a 65-year-old woman's specific variant of TNNT2, a gene which has been associated with cardiomyopathy, was not pathogenic.[10]

He was an Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the scientific director of the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease.[3][12] He is now a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.[1] As of 2021, he serves on the board of directors of the American Society of Human Genetics, in addition to serving on its Diversity and Inclusion Task force.[13]

Musunuru is the author of The CRISPR Generation: The Story of the World's First Gene-Edited Babies, in which he delves into the scientific breakthroughs that enabled He Jiankui to create the world's first gene-edited babies, a scandal Musunuru describes as a "historic ethical fiasco, a deeply flawed experiment".[14][2] He was one of the independent experts who reviewed He's manuscript.[2]

He has an h-index of 57 according to Semantic Scholar.[15]

Awards and honours

See also

  • Musunuru, his ancestral village in Andhra Pradesh, India

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Kiran Musunuru | Faculty | About Us | Perelman School of Medicine | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania". www.med.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mozumder, Suman Guha. "Dr. Kiran Musunuru: On designer babies and genetic editing". IndiaAbroad.com. Archived from the original on 2021-02-03. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The American Society for Clinical Investigation". Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  4. 1 2 3 "A vaccination to prevent heart attacks?". hsci.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  5. 1 2 3 "2018 Judson Daland Prize". American Philosophical Society. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  6. ↑ "Open Targets hosts Kiran Musunuru: insights into the genetic basis of coronary heart disease". Open Targets Blog. 2021-03-16. Retrieved 2021-03-24.
  7. ↑ Ding Qiurong; Strong Alanna; Patel Kevin M.; Ng Sze-Ling; Gosis Bridget S.; Regan Stephanie N.; Cowan Chad A.; Rader Daniel J.; Musunuru Kiran (2014-08-15). "Permanent Alteration of PCSK9 With In Vivo CRISPR-Cas9 Genome Editing". Circulation Research. 115 (5): 488–492. doi:10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.115.304351. PMC 4134749. PMID 24916110.
  8. ↑ "Prenatal gene editing used in treating congenital disease before birth". Drug Target Review. 9 October 2018.
  9. ↑ Rossidis, Avery C.; Stratigis, John D.; Chadwick, Alexandra C.; Hartman, Heather A.; Ahn, Nicholas J.; Li, Haiying; Singh, Kshitiz; Coons, Barbara E.; Li, Li; Lv, Wenjian; Zoltick, Philip W. (October 2018). "In utero CRISPR-mediated therapeutic editing of metabolic genes". Nature Medicine. 24 (10): 1513–1518. doi:10.1038/s41591-018-0184-6. ISSN 1546-170X. PMC 6249685. PMID 30297903.
  10. 1 2 "A Step Closer to Precision Medicine? Gene Editing Process Leads to Personalized Advice for Heart Patient". www.cardiovascularbusiness.com. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  11. ↑ Lv Wenjian; Qiao Lyon; Petrenko Nataliya; Li Wenjun; Owens Anjali T.; McDermott-Roe Chris; Musunuru Kiran (2018-12-11). "Functional Annotation of TNNT2 Variants of Uncertain Significance With Genome-Edited Cardiomyocytes". Circulation. 138 (24): 2852–2854. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.118.035028. PMC 6309910. PMID 30565988.
  12. ↑ Inquirer, Kiran Musunuru and Anjali Tiku Owens, For the. "What genetics could mean for your heart disease risk — and what you can do about it". www.inquirer.com. Retrieved 2021-01-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. ↑ Md 20852 (2020-07-28). "ASHG". ASHG. Retrieved 2021-02-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ Musunuru, Kiran. The CRISPR generation : the story of the world's first gene-edited babies. [Pennsauken, NJ]. ISBN 978-1-5439-8637-2. OCLC 1130315734.
  15. ↑ "K. Musunuru". Semantic Scholar. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  16. ↑ "ARCHIVED — The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) Program Archive". grants.nih.gov. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  17. ↑ "Fannie Cox Prize to Burton, Musunuru". Harvard Gazette. 2014-10-21. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  18. ↑ "The Gill Award | Internal Medicine". internalmedicine.med.uky.edu. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  19. ↑ "American Federation for Medical Research". American Federation for Medical Research. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
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