Aditi Bhargava, PhD

The overarching goal of my research is to understand the sex-specific molecular and cellular actions of the stress hormones and their receptors that operate in health and disease. Stressors, whether perceived, physical, or environmental are pervasive in our lives. An estimated 57 million people in the United States – twice as many women as men – suffer from stress-related disorders, including anxiety, depression, Type 2 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, pain, infertility, and gastrointestinal disorders. Cellular stress can alter the metabolic state; it also sends signals to pathogens that may otherwise lie dormant or latent, to get activated and cause disease. Metabolic changes caused by sleep disturbances are sex specific and explain PTSD severity in patients, as our latest research has demonstrated.

While it is recognized that sex differences exist in etiology and symptoms for many diseases that range from psychological to cardiovascular, many new drugs fail in clinical trials for these indications, as they do not show efficacy in one or the other sex. This is because risk factors and genetic factors that predispose men and women to the same disease differ. To better understand sex differences in health, it is key to differentiate between the contribution of gonadal (sex) hormones and sex chromosome (X or Y) complement. 

Our experimental approaches are designed to investigate the molecular basis for stress-related disorders in an integrated manner using animal models of human diseases, tissues obtained from patients, cell, and molecular biology approaches (such as mRNA technology), and bioinformatics. Our efforts are also focused on understanding how mRNAs therapeutics, such as those in the vaccines work in the cells. Our major effort is now to ascertain vaccine safety and mental health status by surveying people’s response to vaccine efficacy and safety (PROVES) in an unbiased manner.