2025 Updates
Sampath Lab Euro Trip – September: Several members of the Sampath Lab attended the 2025 International Conference on the Bioscience of Lipids (ICBL) in Innsbruck, Austria. The trip offered an inspiring mix of cutting-edge science, meaningful networking, scenic alpine hikes, and unforgettable cuisine. We return energized and with a deeper appreciation for the complexityāand undeniable coolnessāof lipid biology.
Harini is inducted as an Excellence in Nutrition Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition, along with two distinguished fellows from the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Rutgers. Thank you ASN for this honor. Read more about this here: https://sebsnjaesnews.rutgers.edu/2025/04/three-nutritional-sciences-faculty-honored-by-the-american-society-for-nutrition/
Graduate student Matt Selby speaks with the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology on the importance seeking new experiences while in grad school…nice work Matt! Read the short interview here: https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/careers/012425/new-year-new-goals-advice-for-grad-students
May 2025: Two undergraduates are leaving us and moving on…we wish Bhavya Gupta the best in her MS in Data Science and Archini Desai the best at Dental School. Keep in touch!
May 2025: Bhavya Blaze and Harini participated in commencement exercises in New Brunswick – congrats again Dr. Blaze!
2024 Updates
December 2024:
The lab celebrated the holidays with Ramen before heading out for some end of year R&R. Happy holidays to all!
November 2024:
The lab at the annual Thanksgiving Pie and Coffee gathering!
Congratulations to Natalie on winning an RCLR poster award!
An additional congratulations to Bhavya on being awarded the Women’s League of Rutgers University Community Service Scholarship for her academic accomplishments and community service work!
October 2024: Harini was selected as the winner of the 2024 Early Career Research Excellence Award at SEBS, Rutgers.
September 2024: Harini presented work from the lab at several invited seminar series, including Purdue University and University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Natalie’s publication on SCD1 in the gut and modulation of bile acid homeostasis was accepted in CMGH. Check it out here: https://www.cmghjournal.org/article/S2352-345X(24)00158-9/fulltext
We also thank Dr. Jessica Ferrell for her nice editorial on this report: https://www.cmghjournal.org/article/S2352-345X(24)00156-5/fulltext
August 2024: Undergraduate researchers Gayathri Pantula and Jordan Comer presented their summer research at the Aresty and RUYES forums.
July 2024: The lab welcomes our summer undergraduate scholars. Jordan Comer joins us as part of the Rutgers Youth Enjoy Science (RUYES) Program. Gayathri Pantula comes to the lab as a summer Aresty Fellow. Along with veteran undergraduate Bhavya Gupta, all three students will be focusing on understanding aspects of lipid metabolism in diverse tissue and cell types. Welcome!
Information on the RUYES program can be found at: https://www.cinj.org/education/rutgers-youth-enjoy-science-ruyes-program-overview
Information on the Aresty Summer Science program can be found at: https://aresty.rutgers.edu/programs/summer-science-program
June 2024: Harini was invited to speak at the Lipoprotein Metabolism Gordon Conference held in the ever beautiful Waterville Valley of NH. It was a wonderful week of scientific exchanges, rekindling of old friendships, and forging of new connections.
May 2024: A huge congratulations to Dr. Bhavya Blaze for successful defense of her thesis: “The tissue-specific roles of 8-Oxoguanine DNA Glycosylase in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue.” We wish you continued success in your training and beyond.
May 2024: The rain did not dampen our spirits as Natalie participated in the School of Graduate Studies 2024 Convocation. ššš¾
March 2024: The lab enjoyed a group trip to San Antonio and loaded up on science, sunshine, and salsa at the ASBMB annual meeting.
Our work was also highlighted by ASBMB Today – you can read about it here.
https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/032424/how-an-enzyme-protects-the-colon
Bhavya and Camille both received ASBMB Travel Awards to attend the annual meeting in San Antonio.
Priyanka leads the year with her publication on modulation of OGG1 activity by Zinc status. Congratulations Priyanka!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568786424000041?via%3Dihub
Our publication on SCD1 in the gut and modulation of bile acid homeostasis is now on BioRxiv!
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.12.575400v1
2023 News
2023 was a busy year. Papers were published, meetings attended, many talks given, posters presented, and awards won. In between all this, we also managed to squeeze in some fun. Here are a few highlights:
>>Bhavya Blaze shared her exciting data on the DNA repair protein OGG1 and muscle endurance at the CSHL 2023 Metabolism conference via a poster entitled: “Overexpression of human OGG1 improves skeletal muscle endurance in mice.” She also presented a seminar at the Rutgers Center for Lipid Research. Bhavya also received a Travel Award from the School of Graduate Studies and a Fellowship from the for the completion of her doctoral thesis. Congratulations Bhavya!
Natalie Burchat successfully defended her doctoral thesis in July 2023 – this was a very good reason to celebrate. She has been appointed to the NIH Tumor Metabolism T32 Training Grant and is leading the lab in exciting new directions as a postdoctoral fellow.
>>Undergraduate student Bhavya Bupta completed the SULI internship at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, presenting her work in a final symposium (pictured here at a Rutgers poster session with Graduate student Bhava Blaze).
Camille received an RCLR small project grant and presented her work at the RCLR meeting. She also presented her work at the FASEB Intestinal Lipid Conference, in Steamboat Springs, CO, where she received the “best poster award” for her presentation. Well done Camille!
Harini welcomed the youngest member of the Sampath Lab crew — baby Sachi was born in August 2023.
>>In her role as Provost Research Leadership Fellow, Harini coordinated the inaugural Undergraduate Research Discovery Day (URDD) in September 2023. This was a fair style event that exposed undergraduate students to the various research opportunities and pipelines at Rutgers. Undergraduate researcher Bhavya Gupta and RUYES Scholar Chardege Exantus answered questions as part of a student panel, and GH Cook Scholar Jeanine Vidola and Graduate Student Matt Selby led a tour of the IFNH and associated research centers.
We celebrated many milestones, birthdays, accomplishments, and holidays along the way. Here are some pictures from these various events.
2022 News
November 2022:
Priyanka won the Carman Prize in Lipids for 2022. Congratulations Priyanka!
October 2022:
The lab celebrated Halloween with a group costume – presenting…
The Sampath Lab Crayons
Congratulations to many lab members for their Travel Awards and Grants graciously sponsored by the Rutgers Center for Lipid Research (https://rclr.rutgers.edu/)
Camille Duchamp – RCLR Research Grant
Bhavya Blaze – RCLR Travel Grant
Priyanka Sharma – RCLR Travel Grant
September 2022: Harini and Natalie attended the 2023 ICBL Conference in Montreal this month. Natalie’s abstract was chosen for a short talk, AND she won the best presentation award for this year! Congratulations Natalie – we are so proud of you!
Scroll through some of the pictures from the meeting and social events, below.
July 2022: Congratulations to Priyanka and the whole lab on the acceptance of our paper, Metabolic protection by the dietary flavonoid 7,8-dihydroxyflavone requires an intact gut microbiome in Frontiers in Nutrition. Read it here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.987956/full
May 2022: Congratulations to our GH Cook Scholars Sarah Pfreundschuh, Nirali Trivedi, and Ranjita Suresh on the successful completion of their theses. We will miss you and wish you good luck in your onward journeys – keep in touch!
June 2022: Congratulations to Natalie and the whole lab on the acceptance of our paper, SCD1 is nutritionally and spatially regulated in the intestine and influences systemic postprandial lipid homeostasis and gut-liver crosstalk in BBA-Lipids. Read it here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35718096/
April 2022: Harini is promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure!! She is also awarded the Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence Award, as one of the university’s most distinguished young faculty members.
March 2022: Natalie and Priyanka receive ASBMB travel awards to attend Experimental Biology; both give great oral presentations. Bhavya Blaze presents her work on OGG1 in skeletal muscle at EB 2022.
Our recent NIH grant is recognized by Rutgers and SEBS here: https://sebsnjaesnews.rutgers.edu/2022/03/sebs-assistant-professor-harini-sampath-awarded-1-9-million-nih-grant-focused-on-lipid-research/?fbclid=IwAR0lT5LsPpV1ERUBdM39eqcB2Z1hJfW-0Jh2ZDeSsRA1HiDVeZg6NIxoI4s
February 2022: In a surreal return to in-person meetings, Harini gives an invited talk at the Big10 Lipids Alliance annual meeting in Champaign, IL on novel findings regarding SCD1 in the gut. It was so wonderful to meet colleagues old and new and talk lipids (almost) the whole time.
November-December 2021:Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations are loads of fun and provide a good excuse for some pictures. Congratulations to Joseph Woods on completing his BS in Biotechnology. Good luck Joseph!
Natalie is awarded the Carman Prize in Lipids 2021 – way to to Natalie!!
September-October 2021: It’s back to school, back to classes, teaching, graduate rotations, GH Cook students, and undergraduate researchers for the Sampath Lab. Read about our new members on the People page. September is also a busy ‘birthday month’, and the lab arranged several celebrations, including a surprise 5-year anniversary celebration for the lab. Fun was had by all š
August 2021: Natalie’s paper is accepted in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology – Congratulations to all the co-authors!
Burchat N, Sharma P, Ye H, Komakula SSB, Dobrzyn A, Vartanian V, Lloyd RS and Sampath H (2021) Maternal Transmission of Human OGG1 Protects Mice Against Genetically and Diet-Induced Obesity Through Increased Tissue Mitochondrial Content. Front. Cell Dev. Biol. 9:718962. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.718962
July 2021: The lab has been awarded a 5-year R-01 grant by the National Institutes of Health to study the role of intestinal lipid metabolism in regulating systemic health. On that note, would you like to join our team? We are looking for talented postdoctoral fellows and doctoral students to join the lab to work on this exciting project.
See job posting at: https://careers.asbmb.org/jobs/
January-March 2021: COVID or no COVID, the lab has been keeping busy. Congratulations to the lab on the acceptance of two manuscripts:
Graduate student Sai Komakula had his paper on DNA repair in the adipocyte accepted at IJMS , and Priyanka Sharma had her paper on sexual dimorphism in metabolic responses accepted in Nutrients. Way to go!
Find these and all our papers at: https://tinyurl.com/pbrhdrct
September 2020: The lab makes time for a socially-distanced pizza lunch to celebrate a multitude of September birthdays. The lab appears to be a magnet for those born in this month!
Congratulations to alum Anupom Mondal and graduate student Natalie Burchat on the acceptance of their paper to BBA: Molecular and Cell Biology of Lipids. Read all about it here…
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388198120302080
August 2020: Congratulations to Nutritional Sciences doctoral student Bhavya Blaze on passing her Qualifiers — yay!
The interesting year 2020
Well, when 2020 rolled around, we certainly couldn’t have envisioned the challenges it would bring to us all. However, in these uncertain times, we have managed to be healthy (touchwood) and productive.
In March, Natalie successfully defended her Research Proposal, in what would later be known as “The last time we all gathered together in person without masks.” Later, her abstract to the ASBMB annual meeting was chosen for a podium talk, only for the meeting to be canceled. However, Natalie gave an excellent virtual seminar on her work on intestinal desaturases at the ASBMB Spotlight Session in June. Check it out here (for a limited time): https://www.asbmb.org/meetings-events/2020-annual-meeting/regulation-of-lipid-metabolism
Priyanka’s abstract to the ASN annual meeting was also chosen for a podium talk, as a finalist for the “Emerging Leaders in Nutrition” award – way to go, Priyanka! Hopefully, we will have a chance to present this work in person next year.
Tasleenpal Akal completed her MS thesis in Nutritional Sciences, which was conferred by Rutgers in May of 2020. Nice job, Tas!
Sai Komakula defended his Ph.D. thesis, supervised by Harini and Dr. Agnieszka Dobrzyn of the Nencki Institute in Warsaw, Poland. Sai defended his thesis via a virtual Zoom meeting, attended by over 75 participants from around the world. Following a grueling defense, Sai earned his doctoral degree, and we celebrated with multiple virtual celebrations. Thanks to all who attended his defense and the after-parties. Congratulations Dr. Komakula, and best wishes for your postdoctoral fellowship at University of Wroclaw.
Harini was awarded an American Heart Association Career Development Grant to pursue a role for intestinal desaturases in regulating whole-body metabolism. We are excited to use this timely award to increase our understanding of the intestine as a critical organ that regulates whole-body health.
In addition to staying productive and keeping essential strains and experiments going, lab members have descended fully into backyard gardening and homesteading activities.
As we take a deep breath (through a mask) and resume our research activities in full swing, the lab is now making plans for a socially-distanced celebration of lab birthdays that were missed during this shutdown. Happy birthday wishes to Deeptha and Bhavya.
December 2019
We wish you all a happy holiday season, and a great start to the New Year.
November 2019
Priyanka presents the lab’s findings at the inaugural IFNH Research Day
Harini presents a talk at the annual RCLR Lipids Symposium, and several of the students and postdocs all present posters. Sai wins a poster award for his work on OGG1 and adipocyte differentiation. Great going Sai!
October 2019
A lab tradition continues…Halloween 2019.
The lab receives a Pilot grant from the NIH-Rutgers/PBRC Botanicals Research Center to study the mechanisms underlying sexual dimorphism in metabolic effects of a dietary flavonoid.
The lab receives a New Jersey IFNH Seed Grant to study the dietary and genetic modulation of intestine-derived lipoproteins. Co-Investigators on this grant include Drs. Judith Storch (Rutgers, Nutrition), Loredana Quadr (Rutgers, Food Science), and Joseph Dixon (Rutgers, Nutrition)
September 2019
Priyanka presents her work regarding sexual dimorphism in metabolic responses to a dietary flavonoid at the Big10 Lipids Conference at the University of Minnesota
Sai passes his doctoral qualifying exams at the Nencki Institute! Congratulations Sai!
July 2019
Harini and Anupom present lab findings at the Gordon Conference on the Molecular Biology of Lipids, held in beautiful Waterville Valley, NH.
Rutgers RiSE undergraduate scientist Gloria Awuku presents her summer work from the Sampath lab and wins a 5-minute presentation award!Ā Congratulations Gloria.
Harini’s invited review in DNA Repair is published
“Roles of OGG1 in Transcriptional Regulation and Maintenance of Metabolic Homeostasis”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568786419302204?via%3Dihub
Ā June 2019
Harini is inducted into the Scientific Steering Committee of the International Conference on the Bioscience of Lipids (ICBL).
Steering Commitee
April 2019
Priyanka and Sai both receive travel awards from the Rutgers’ Center for Lipid Research to travel to meetings this year.Ā Great going!
Sai presented the lab’s work and parts of his thesis at the 12th Annual Nutrition, Endocrinology, and Food Science Graduate Student Conference, as an invited speaker.Ā Well done, Sai!
March 2019
Graduate student Tasleen got married!Ā And the whole lab was glad to attend a lovely reception hosted by Tas’ parents.Ā Thank you for having us, and best wishes to the happy couple!
At a cake and ‘champagne’ reception in the lab.
The whole group in Indian (and Chinese) attire, at the wedding reception.Ā Sampath Lab (above) and the extended lab (below).
February 2019
Postdoctoral Associate Dr. Priyanka Sharma and Harini Sampath publish an invited review in a Special Edition of the journal Cells, focused on mitochondrial DNA integrity and its role in health and disease. https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/8/2/100/htm
January 2019
2019 is off to a great start, with Dr. Anupom Mondal being chosen as an INSPIRE associate. The INSPIRE Postdoctoral Program at Rutgers provides mentorship in teaching and career development for postdoctoral fellows. More about the program here: http://rwjms.rutgers.edu/research/postdoc/inspire/Ā Congratulations and best wishes to Anupom!
Graduate student Bhavya Blaze joins the lab as a doctoral-track student of Nutritional Sciences.Ā Welcome Bhavya!
December 2018: The lab celebrated many many holiday parties and events and made plans to travel and relax with family and friends for a few days, before beginning anew in 2019!Ā We wish you all a happy and safe holiday season!
November 2018: Sai successfully completes his doctoral qualifiers – Congratulations Sai on officially graduating to be the first doctoral candidate from the Sampath Lab!
November 2018: The lab presents 2 posters at the Rutgers Center for Lipid Research Lipid Symposium
October 2018: Harini receives a Research Innovation grant from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation.
October 2018: The graduate students dress up as C57Bl6 and obese Agouti mice for the departmental Halloween event.
October 2018: The lab bids a fond and teary farewell to Dr. Mary Falduto – we will miss you!
October 2018: Harini appears on TV Asia’s Center Stage to talk about Nutrition Trends – How to Interpret Nutrition Guidelines for a Healthier You
October 2018: Sai has a first-author publication in Nature Scientific Reports on the role of mitochondrial DNA repair in adipose tissue and its contribution to body weight regulation.Ā Great work!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-33151-1
September 2018: Harini co-chairs Session on Metabolism at the 3rd Central European Biomedical Congress in Krakow, Poland and gives a talk on DNA repair as a novel player in metabolic regulation.
August 2018: Tas passes her gruelling qualifiers.Ā Hooray Tas!
August 2018: Sai and Dr. Sampath attend the Kern Lipid Meeting in beautiful Vail, CO.Ā After a day of altitude adjustment, Sai presents his work both as a poster and an oral presentation.
July 2018: Sai receives a Travel Award from the Kern Lipid Symposium and is chosen to give a short oral presentation.Ā Great going, Sai!
July 2018: Natalie passes her qualifiers with flying colors.Ā Congrats Natalie!
May 2018: Dr. Sampath presents the labās findings on OGG1 and metabolic disease at the Columbia Lipids Sympsium in NYC.
November 2017: Sai receives a travel award for his poster presentation at the RCLR Symposium.Ā Yay for Sai!
The Sampath Lab 