Archana Unnikrishnan PhD

Archana Unnikrishnan received her doctorate in Nutrition and Food Science from Wayne State University and pursued aging research training at the University of Oklahoma. Unnikrishnan’s research focuses on various aspects of Aging, (1) the effect of dietary restriction (DR) on aging, (2) the effect of dietary restriction on DNA methylation, and (3) the role played by DNA methylation in dietary restriction mediated metabolic/cellular memory. Her preliminary work shows that DR improves glucose tolerance and insulin tolerance within days of starting the restriction reaching significance by 10 days and has a metabolic memory i.e., the effect of DR on insulin sensitivity and glucoregulation persists even when DR is discontinued. To understand the mechanism behind the metabolic memory she is studying DNA methylation and is currently using a novel technology to measure the genome-wide patterns of 5mCG and 5hmCG in specific sequences of mice fed ad libitum or a DR diet. This ongoing study is the first study to determine the role played by DNA methylation in DR-mediated cellular/metabolic memory. Her research also focuses on characterizing the effect of life-long DR on DNA methylation in intestinal stem cells and delineates the functional outcome of these methylation changes with respect to intestinal stem cell regeneration and integrity.