The Department of Anesthesiology recently welcomed Sowmya Yelamanchili, Ph.D., an assistant professor and basic science researcher focused on neurodegenerative diseases and drug abuse.
Dr. Yelamanchili’s previous role was in UNMC’s Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, where she spent 11 years developing her research. She has received multiple NIH grants, including her R01 grant that focuses on the role of extracellular vesicles in chronic methamphetamine abuse. She now hopes to shift her work into translational research. Her move to the Department of Anesthesiology aligns with her interest in studying the long-term effects of opioids and anesthetics. In the next five years, her goal is to expand her research program to investigating the long-term effects of anesthetics.
“Basic science researchers and clinicians need to learn a lot from the current opioid epidemic, and come together to find a solution,” Dr. Yelamanchili said. “As basic science researchers, we can be shielded from real-life problems and only know the molecular aspects of drugs in preclinical models–not how they impact people.
“Similarly, clinicians are often unaware of the long-term effects of the drugs being administered to alleviate pain or to put patients under sedation. With this move, I hope to get closer to clinicians and help fill in the gap between basic and clinical research.”
Dr. Yelamanchili won UNMC’s New Investigator Award in 2017. The award goes to outstanding scientists who, in the previous two years, secured their first funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, or other national resources, and have demonstrated scholarly activity.
Drug abuse is a debilitating disease, and yet today we stand very far from a cure, says Dr. Yelamanchili. The knowledge gained through her lab’s studies could be used to develop novel therapeutic targets and therapies for drug addiction.
Dr. Yelamanchili’s lab staff includes:
- Subhash Chand, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Research Associate
- Katherine Odegaard, Graduate Research Assistant
- Farah Shahjin, Graduate Research Assistant
- Austin Gowen, Research Technologist I