astronomy

Kiran Musunuru

Kiran Musunuru is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kiran Musunuru rather than just read about it. In short: Kiran Musunuru is an American cardiologist who is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He researches the genetics and genomics of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

Key takeaways

Kiran Musunuru belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kiran Musunuru to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kiran Musunuru from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kiran Musunuru is an American cardiologist who is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. 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. His father is a renowned cardiologist who moved to the US from India in 1976. He is of Telugu descent hailing from Uppaluru village, Krishna Dt, Andhra Pradesh. Musunuru obtained a degree in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College in 1997. He later obtained a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Rockefeller University in 2003, and an MD from Weill-Cornell Medical College in 2004. 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. 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. He also undertook postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as the Broad Institute.

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. He discovered two novel genes involved in coronary artery disease: SORT1 and ANGPTL3. His research aims to find genetic variants which affect the course of disease and could be used to develop protective therapies. 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. 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. 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. 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. Musunuru cofounded Verve Therapeutics to develop gene editing techniques for treat cholesterol altering congenital genetic disorders. 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. 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. 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. He is now a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. 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. 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". He was one of the independent experts who reviewed He's manuscript. Musunuru was the primary author of an NEJM paper in which KJ Muldoon, a baby born with a liver disorder, Carbamoyl phosphate synthetase I deficiency, received CRISPR gene editing technology. The disorder is caused by a mutation in the CPS1 gene.

Awards and honours The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2013) Harvard University's Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching (2014) The American Heart Association's Award for Meritorious Achievement (2016) The Gill Heart and Vascular Institute Translational Award for Early Stage Career Investigators (2017) Elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2017) The American Philosophical Society's Judson Daland Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Investigation "in recognition of his work discovering and therapeutically targeting cardiovascular disease genes" (2018) The American Federation for Medical Research's Outstanding Investigator Award (2019)

See also Musunuru, his ancestral village in Andhra Pradesh, India

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kiran Musunuru

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kiran Musunuru claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kiran Musunuru before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kiran Musunuru ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kiran Musunuru

In research: Kiran Musunuru appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kiran Musunuru in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kiran Musunuru is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American medical doctors, American cardiologists, American medical doctors of Indian descent, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kiran Musunuru outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Kiran Musunuru in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kiran Musunuru means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kiran Musunuru out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kiran Musunuru in simple terms?

Why does Kiran Musunuru matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kiran Musunuru?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kiran Musunuru.