Ravindra Alluri, PhD

email: alluri@email.unc.edu

Background and Research Interests
Ravindra graduated in 2001 from Nagarjuna University with M.S in Bio-Chemistry. He worked as a Bio-Chemist for 1.5 years at Kamineni Hospitals and Research Center in India.  In 2002, he moved to the Department of Genetics and Molecular medicine (Kamineni Hospitals and Research Center), where he enrolled himself into a part-time PhD program in Human Genetics (Osmania University, India). His PhD dissertation focused on understanding the role of exogenous agents in modulating the stability of DNA triplet repeats in patients with spinocerebellar ataxias.  In 2004, he joined as a scientist at Magene Life sciences, where he developed expertise in various In Vitro ADMET assays. He completed his PhD in 2007 and moved on to work for Advinus Therapeutics, where he developed several In Vitro ADMET assays and represented the DMPK group in various discovery programs. In 2008, he later took up a position as a principal scientist at Sai Advantium Pharma, where he headed the entire In Vitro DMPK group of 12 scientists. He worked as an Associate Director of DMPK at Sai Advantium Pharma before he took up the position of a Postdoctoral research associate in the Thakker Laboratory.

He is currently working on understanding the role of apical uptake transporters in the intestinal absorption and pharmacology of the anti-diabetic drug metformin. He is exploring the possibility of using AAV vectors as siRNA delivery vehicles to create intestine-specific transporter knockdown mouse models.