Aarati Asundi (00:12) Hi everyone and welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shape the world. I'm Aarati. Jyoti Asundi (00:20) and I'm her mom, Jyoti. Aarati Asundi (00:22) And today we have a very special guest with us. Would you like to introduce yourself? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (00:27) Yes, hi everyone. My name is Kiara Rodriguez and I'm a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania. Aarati Asundi (00:35) Awesome. And Kiara is also one of the winners of the 2025 #MySciJourney Challenge that was put on by our friends at Galactic Polymath Education Studio. So congratulations on winning that competition. Your video was amazing. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (00:52) Thank you so much. Jyoti Asundi (00:53) Yay! Big shout out! Aarati Asundi (00:56) Yes, and we're definitely going to link the video on our website for anyone who wants to take a look at it. It's fascinating. But we are going to talk a little bit about it today as well on the podcast. But we're so excited to have this opportunity to learn a little bit more about your scientific journey, where you came from, where you're going. So let's maybe start with, Where were you born? What was your childhood like? And then how did you get into science? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (01:26) Yes, so I was born in Puerto Rico. It's a small island in the Caribbean and I was born in sort of the center of the island. I grew up there with a big family. I have one brother and one twin sister. We're fraternal, so we do not look alike, but I do have a lot of other cousins, aunts, uncles, big family. And I grew up my whole childhood there. I started studying in middle school at a science focused school. And that's where I got introduced to like biology, chemistry. I was part of the chemistry club. And so I was really into doing fun experiments, basically that was my introduction to science. And that's why I decided to pursue science later on when I chose a career. Jyoti Asundi (02:22) Oh my God, hold on, hold on. Just thinking about your childhood itself sounds so fantastic. I am imagining that you grew up like in a tropical, it's a tropical island, I think. Nice, warm, and mangoes everywhere, and Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (02:40) Yes. Yes, I love mangoes. Jyoti Asundi (02:41) Coconut, mangoes, pineapples... Aarati Asundi (02:46) Oh my god, all the best, all the best fruits. ⁓ Jyoti Asundi (02:48) Papaya, all the best. So you grow up on that. So naturally your brain is like absolutely bursting with good ideas, with all the good food. But then also you sound like you have such good support from your family. It sounds very similar to Indian families where you have "cousins", but you don't call them cousins, you say "cousin sister", this is a brother. So there... Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (03:14) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (03:14) It's everybody, it's like you actually have... by birth, you may have one brother or one sister, but by family, you have 10 brothers and 20 sisters who all want to sit on top of your head and tell you what you should be doing with your life and what you should not be doing with your life. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (03:26) Exactly. I'm very close to my cousins. I have a lot of them, but I am very close to a lot of them. Like you said, they're kind of like my other siblings. Jyoti Asundi (03:40) Are they older to you and give you guidance or are you the role model for everybody? How does that go? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (03:46) No, they are, most of them are older than me. I don't have that many scientists in my family, but I have two cousins that pursue... one pursued a medical degree. So I started in sort of a science field. And the other pursued pharmacy. So they started introducing me to like scientific concepts. I would ask them what to do for my science fair. I would ask them, what do you think? What is nice experiment I could do? Jyoti Asundi (04:13) Tell me a nice project. Yes, yes, yes, yes. my goodness. so nice to have that kind of mentorship. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (04:21) Mm-hmm. Aarati Asundi (04:21) Yeah. And then what about your parents? What do they do? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (04:25) So my mom at a bank, so again, non-scientist, but she's a very good project manager, which is very much required for a scientist. Aarati Asundi (04:30) Oh that's important. Yes. Yes Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (04:38) Yeah, and my dad is currently a medical interpreter. So related to science because he has to do the hard job of trying to translate for people in medical offices. He does English to Spanish translation. And I think that informed a little bit about my passions about science, but, you know, it being accessible to people that was related to my science communication video ⁓ and how we can talk about science in that way as well. Aarati Asundi (05:06) Yeah, that's so cool. I actually didn't realize that, you know, being a medical translator is really a career much later on. Once I started working with more hospitals and more patients, the departments that I was working with would say, we're going to send this to our translation team and they're going to translate it into all these different languages. And it had to be very particular because you have to use the absolutely the correct language so that you're conveying the information accurately, but in a way that can still be understood. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (05:38) Right. Aarati Asundi (05:38) So that is really important work. That is awesome. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (05:42) It's very important and it makes health accessible to people. People can understand what their doctors are saying, right? Very important. Aarati Asundi (05:51) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (05:52) But it sounds like you have lot of support from your family to pursue your passions. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (05:58) Yes. Aarati Asundi (05:58) That's awesome. And then you said you went to a specialized middle school. And then what about high school after that? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (06:05) Yes, I continued the same. The middle school had a high school as well. So it was the same science focused high school. that high school, I started developing more complex science fairs and I was able to sort of compete at regional science fairs. And then I even got a path for an international science fair in California. That was one of my first times in the US. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (06:32) What was your best project for a science fair? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (06:35) So the one that I would mention, the one that I think I was very interested in, and it's sort of related to what I do now in a way, was looking at memory, looking at memory consolidation and how people can form memories, right, and eventually store them. And so I would have my friends from my classroom me how much they slept that previous night. If it was six hours, seven hours, eight hours, and I would have them the day before show them a picture of a little illustration. Sometimes it was like animals playing a sport or something like that. And the next day I would ask them if they remember any of the components of that little illustration. Was the animal holding a blue racket or a green racket? Do they remember the color? Do they remember the animal was like wearing any clothing? What kind of animal it was, components like that. And I would see how the amount of sleep they got was correlating with the amount of components they remember from the illustrations. Jyoti Asundi (07:41) Yes, concentration, memory, focus, all of those concepts are being intertwined. Were you able to draw a clear correlation? I can guess the result that the better the sleep, the better you are overall. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (07:57) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (08:00) I can tell because I'm just coming off of jet lag from visiting India and it's like my god. What's my name again? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (08:11) I totally understand. Well, from what I remember from that finding, I remember that it was quite interesting. It wasn't fully conclusive because I had a small sample size. It was just my friends. But I do remember that it was interesting that the people that were used to sleeping six hours- had a constant pattern of sleep- even though they slept less than the people that had eight hours, when the people that had eight hours had disruptions in their sleep, because I did this multiple times over the course of the semester, the people that suffered the most were the ones that had disruptions in their normal sleeping pattern. So I didn't find a clear correlation with more sleep, better memory, but I did find that effect where that usually have more sleep and then get less sleep have less memory or some memory deficits. Obviously that was very preliminary Yeah Aarati Asundi (09:05) Oh interesting! Yes. Jyoti Asundi (09:08) No, but that makes that makes a lot of sense actually. Your body is acclimatized to a certain amount of sleep. Aarati Asundi (09:14) Everyone has their own circadian rhythm. Jyoti Asundi (09:16) Everybody has their own exactly everybody has their own rhythm. But then if it if you're in an abnormal cycle, for whatever reason, then that's when the problem occurs Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (09:27) Exactly. That's what I found in my very small scale high school science fair project. Jyoti Asundi (09:30) Nice! Aarati Asundi (09:33) But that's very cutting edge, I have to say also, because I'm thinking about the timelines of when you were probably in, like when was this around? Like what year were you doing this? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (09:44) Oh my god, like, yeah, like 2015 probably. Aarati Asundi (09:49) Yes, and in those years I was in graduate school and my professor in graduate school was just discovering this as well, like the epigenetics of sleep. We had just gone to a conference, she had learned about this, and my lab was not a sleep lab at all. We did not study this, but she was super excited by it and she was like, we need to study this, and she got a postdoc. who has then put on this project studying sleep. And we use these little worms to study it, this little model organism called C. elegans. And his job basically was to like tap the plate every few hours that the worm was on so that they didn't fall asleep. The worms didn't fall asleep. And then we would see how well they could remember things that we had tried to teach them. We would try- like our lab was really a teaching lab. We would try to teach these worms different things and then understand how they learned and how they adapted to certain stimuli. But if you bothered them and didn't let them rest or didn't let them sleep, we saw the same thing that without sleep, they didn't form memories as well, that they didn't learn as quickly. And so if you're doing this work in high school at around the same time, you're basically doing college level work already. That's amazing. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (11:08) Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that, I mean, I had a lot of fun. It was obviously an experience for me to, you know, bond with my friends and also kind of experiment on them, you know, sort of have fun. So I was really interested in science because of these, you know, sort of projects that I had the opportunity to do. Aarati Asundi (11:25) Yeah, that's super cool. And then you started to mention that you went to the University of Puerto Rico. ⁓ Jyoti Asundi (11:36) And that's when I cut you off and you were just going into something very interesting about another beach town, I think. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (11:42) Yes, so my campus at the University of Puerto Rico is a very small campus and it's about 10 minutes away from the eastern side of the island. And that campus in particular was very well known for their work with like marine biology. Because they're such a close campus... Jyoti Asundi (11:59) Yes, correct. You're right by the sea. That's right. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (12:03) Exactly, the students in the program had a lot of opportunities to go and do field work. So I was really interested in that, but I decided to do a degree in microbiology because I was also very interested in small organisms. And so that's what I started pursuing at the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao . Jyoti Asundi (12:24) We have that in common. I'm also- my undergrad was in microbiology as well. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (12:28) Oh awesome. Yeah, it's very mysterious, you know, what happens with these very small organisms because we can't really see them. So that was what really pulled me towards that program. Jyoti Asundi (12:43) Yeah. And they are small but mighty and they're so opportunistic that if you're, they're just hanging around and the minute your immunity is down for any reason, boom! You are down with an infection. They're so opportunistic. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (12:58) Yes, I mean they have adapted and I mean it's been obviously so much time since the first, you know, sort of microorganism. So they've been around for a while. Aarati Asundi (13:10) Yes. I know we talked a little bit about this before, but how was your first year? Like, how was that transition from going to high school, kind of leaving your family? Not really, because Puerto Rico is a small island, so you're close enough, but still you're, you know, going off to a different college. How was that transition for you? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (13:31) Yes, I was very excited to start college, but and this is related to the problem of being in an island was that my first year of college, the Hurricane Maria hit. So that was a category five hurricane. was my first semester in college. Aarati Asundi (13:50) Oh my god. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (13:50) It was probably, yeah, it was probably my first few weeks because it was September 2017 where Hurricane Maria entered right where my campus is right at that eastern coast. Aarati Asundi (14:01) Oh my god! Jyoti Asundi (14:02) That's like more than a movie. It's more than watching a thriller movie. You're right in it. Ah! Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (14:10) Exactly. So the campus was closed for months because obviously it suffered a lot of damages to structures, just the buildings, classrooms... Aarati Asundi (14:23) I bet there was so much flooding. Yeah. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (14:26) Yes, yes, there was so much flooding, the library was closed. So the campus suffered a lot. But the good thing about being in an island that is sort of used to these phenomenons is that we sort of come together. We went to the school, started cleaning it up. People are all hands on board and we start sort of fixing the things that need to be fixed after a hurricane like that passes. But it was a very drastic change because I went from starting school my first year of college to sort of stopping fully and having to focus on other things, right? Focusing on my own home, my family members, is everyone okay, do we need to rebuild things, right, things like that. So it was definitely a hard first semester. Aarati Asundi (15:14) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (15:15) Oh I imagine. But it's so nice to hear about a community that comes together move the needle forward. It's like we can't sit here crying. Hurricanes come, hurricanes go, but you know we need to move on with our lives. So clean up, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going. Aarati Asundi (15:33) Yeah. There's a lot of resilience in that kind of community. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (15:38) Definitely. But then I was able to, you know, once the school opened back up, I started taking my classes and getting into the actual, my actual degree, right? And that's when I started getting interested in research. My general chemistry professor, I was in his class and he mentioned that he had an opening in his lab and his lab was very different from my usual scientific interest because it was more biochemistry and using nanomaterials to build biosensors. So it was very different. Aarati Asundi (16:15) Oh very cool. Yeah. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (16:17) It was very different. It was very cool, too. We were trying to use relatively cheap biomaterials or nanomaterials, materials that are widely available to try to functionalize them. So make them able to detect that are you can detect maybe in blood, blood samples and see if you could detect breast cancer or cardiovascular disease from a blood sample. So that was what we were trying to do. Of course, it was very slow process because the first thing we had to do was identify, okay, which material could do this. Jyoti Asundi (16:53) Yeah, so basically you're looking for some easily available material that can bind to something that is cancer specific in the blood. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (17:01) Right. Jyoti Asundi (17:01) And then you are able to detect that material somehow. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (17:05) We can detect whatever- could be whatever biomarker, whatever material is in the sample, it's in the blood that could show us if there's, is that individual is cancer positive or not. Jyoti Asundi (17:17) Wow. Aarati Asundi (17:18) Interesting. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (17:18) And that work was really, really interesting. And it was really my first professional research experience where I got to go to conferences and I had the opportunity to present a full poster. So it was very fun to do that kind of work. And then after that, I really started getting interested in what I now do, which is more molecular biology. It's more about the molecules instead of microorganisms. I'm more interested in even a smaller concept. Jyoti Asundi (17:52) Smaller, yes, yes, Aarati Asundi (17:53) Even smaller. Yes. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (17:54) Even smaller. Jyoti Asundi (17:56) Nice, nice. For the biosensors, what do you remember any particular thing that stands out to you? Because I'm in the biomarker field as well, so I kind of am interested in looking, though not in cancer, but I'm just thinking about what did you have in a specific finding that is really super exciting that everybody should think about. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (18:19) So from that project, we couldn't get too far because then in my fourth year of my undergraduate degree, that's when COVID pandemic hit. Aarati Asundi (18:28) Oh my god. Jyoti Asundi (18:28) No, hurricane and pandemic. You have two nice bookends to your undergrad experience. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (18:34) Exactly. Yes. Aarati Asundi (18:36) Yeah, my goodness. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (18:38) So we had to stop our research sort of in the middle of it when it started getting interesting and we were sort of able to maybe get something promising. That's when the COVID hit and we had to, you know, stay at home. So, yeah, I graduated not being able to fully finish that project, sadly. Jyoti Asundi (18:55) I'm sorry. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (18:55) But I'm sure they're doing fun things with that project right now. Jyoti Asundi (18:58) Yes, of course, of course. Aarati Asundi (19:01) How long were you in that lab? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (19:03) I was there, I think starting the end of my freshman year, so probably around three years. Aarati Asundi (19:07) About three years. Oh nice. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (19:10) Yes, yes. And within that, I did do summer research experiences. I really enjoyed those because I got the opportunity to do more molecular biology research. And also I had the opportunity to travel at universities. Outside of the University of Puerto Rico. So I had a summer experience at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Aarati Asundi (19:35) Oh that's very different. That's different than Puerto Rico. That's very different than California. Nebraska's like a other world. Jyoti Asundi (19:44) How was that transition? I mean, you're a scientist in quest of, you know, all these wonderful questions you have in your mind and you're dealing with cultural shocks as well and you're facing these challenges. How was that transition from one completely different culture to another? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (20:02) Yes, that's a great question. So it was actually really funny because that summer I had applied to two programs, one in Mexico and one at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. So I got accepted to both, but I decided to do the University of Nebraska in Lincoln because it was so different, right? In Mexico, same language, sort of similar climate in some regions. Jyoti Asundi (20:26) Yeah, this would be more challenging. Yeah. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (20:29) Right. So I decided to do that one because I knew it was going to be more challenging and I knew it was going to be a good opportunity to see what the research was like in the US. Jyoti Asundi (20:38) Yeah, yes. Aarati Asundi (20:39) Mm-hmm. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (20:40) And it was very different. The environment, like you say, the air is different, the climate is different. The people are very, very nice, but they're also very different. Jyoti Asundi (20:52) Lifestyle is different. You need a car practically for everything in some of these places. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (20:58) Yes, but thankfully I did, I was able to stay at the dorms at the university. Jyoti Asundi (21:03) Oh that worked, okay. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (21:05) Yes, because of summer program sponsors, you stay in there, I was also able to eat for the first time in like a food hall, which I had never done because there's no such thing back home. So I did love that. I was like, there's a salad bar and a pasta bar and a, you know, all the bars. Jyoti Asundi (21:26) Fantastic. Aarati Asundi (21:27) So you gained the freshman 15 in your sophomore or junior year instead. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (21:30) Exactly, exactly. So the experience, it was very positive. I had a great time in Nebraska. Aarati Asundi (21:41) And then what was the research that you did there? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (21:44) Yes, so the research over there was about extreme organisms. So extremophiles, organisms that like extreme environments like heat, or in my case, we were studying acidophiles, organisms that thrive in very acidic conditions. They had in this lab, cultured these organisms to be able to adapt to a pH of 0.8, which for reference... Aarati Asundi (22:11) Oh my God. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (22:12) ...vinegar is a pH of three. So 0.8 is fold changes lower. Very acidic environment. Jyoti Asundi (22:21) Do these organisms then live in the gut because in the gut there is the acid and they are able to live in there. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (22:28) Yes, some of them do, but the ones that we were looking at live in hydrothermal vents deep deep in the ocean. Jyoti Asundi (22:35) Oh wow, okay, Aarati Asundi (22:35) Oh wow. So we did an episode on extremophiles actually. Dr. Thomas Brock, we did him a few months ago and he was looking at extremophiles that were also in hydrothermal vents and under extreme heat. So that's really cool. So these are hydrothermal vents that are, like sulfuric acid? Is that what you're talking...? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (22:58) Yes. So yes, like sulfuric acid levels of acidic conditions. And they were studying these organisms because they were interested in potential epiogenetics. Epigenetics is the study of how the environment could affect expression of genes, how genes turn on or off. And they had a inkling that these organisms may be able to adapt to these kinds of environments because they may have any epigenetic changes going on. And it's very interesting because they were the first ones to culture these organisms and get them to live in this very acidic condition. And when they sequenced their genome, they don't find any mutations that could have conferred them the ability to resist this acidic environment. Aarati Asundi (23:49) So their DNA is not changing... Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (23:52) No! Aarati Asundi (23:52) ...as compared to microbes that live in non-acidic conditions. Their DNA is exactly the same. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (23:58) Exactly. Jyoti Asundi (24:00) So the epigenetics then is affecting the chromatin structure maybe or something. ⁓ Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (24:05) Yes, yes. So they find that these organisms have histone proteins, which are the proteins that wrap around that DNA, make that DNA very condensed or loose, relaxed, depending on if you want to turn genes on or turn genes off. And they find that these organisms have histone proteins, which is very interesting. These are microorganisms usually believed or before it was believed that they didn't have any histone proteins, but they do. Aarati Asundi (24:36) Oh! Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (24:37) Yeah, cause they're archean organisms and they found that their histone proteins had different modifications, specifically methylation that was maybe leading them to protect these genes in these very acidic environments. Jyoti Asundi (24:53) Wow. That is so cool. Aarati Asundi (24:54) Oh, so like the methylated histones would keep the DNA kind of wrapped really tightly so that the DNA was protected or the genes in that DNA could not be turned on. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (25:09) Exactly. Aarati Asundi (25:09) And that those genes are what makes the organism susceptible to acidic conditions. So if they're not being turned on, the organism can survive in these very acidic conditions. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (25:22) Exactly, exactly. So it was very cool work. Aarati Asundi (25:24) That's so cool. Jyoti Asundi (25:26) Nature has the most amazing tricks. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (25:30) Yes, And I mean, I after that I was sold in the like epigenetics field. I was like, this is very cool. How the environment a gene without changing the sequence that I got really, really into. Aarati Asundi (25:45) Yeah, because I think we're like always taught DNA is like the blueprint of life and what your DNA is, makes up who you are. And so like all your characteristics are dependent on your DNA, but that's not true. Actually. This epigenetics thing is another layer so it's really both your DNA and what your epigenetics are doing that determine your characteristics. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (26:09) It's your environment and they know this more now because of twin studies, right? Twins share about 100 % of their DNA. But if these twins grow up in different environments, what differences could these twins have... Aarati Asundi (26:25) Right. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (26:25) ...even though they have exactly the same DNA sequence? So it's very cool. Jyoti Asundi (26:32) Wow, and you being a twin is even more exciting to see that. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (26:35) Yeah. Aarati Asundi (26:35) Yeah, What does your twin do, by the way? She's not a scientist also, right? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (26:41) No, my twin sister, like I said, we're fraternal, but she's like my best friend. We grew up together. We were born on the same day. I always had a friend from the beginning. Aarati Asundi (26:52) From day one. Yeah. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (26:53) And from day one, I had a best friend. And now she just finished her master's. She went to Spain, was there for two years. Aarati Asundi (27:03) Nice. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (27:03) Yeah. And she was studying there to finish her master's in education. So now she's back home looking to be an educator. Aarati Asundi (27:13) Amazing, amazing. Jyoti Asundi (27:13) Wow, it's wonderful. Aarati Asundi (27:15) And so then you mentioned that you had one more research opportunity when you were in undergrad. So you did the University of Nebraska and then where else did you go? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (27:25) Yes, so the second experience was another summer experience that I did virtually because the whole pandemic thing. Aarati Asundi (27:34) Yes, naturally. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (27:35) You know, always affecting everything. But it was a great experience because I was able to connect with the University of Pennsylvania, which is where I am now. And in this summer research experience, I was able to gain more skills in bioinformatic analysis and computational work. And it was very different, but very important because that is part of what I do now too. I was able to gain that experience thanks to the summer research program. And not only that, I was also able to work on my scientific writing because the program was virtual. We worked on these kinds of skills that, you know, didn't need for us to be in the lab or at the bench more these scientific writing skills. And so I was able to develop a proposal on histone methylation, but I was specifically interested in histone methylation in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism. That's when I started getting interested in neuroscience and epigenetics together, right? I mentioned histone methylation. I mentioned memory in my high school research. And so now I started combining the two and getting into this concept of neuro epigenetics, which is what I do now. But that program, I was able to write a proposal submit it to the National Science Foundation, and I was fellowship for me to pursue my graduate degree. So it was a really great experience because even though it was a virtual format, which of course I was a little out at the beginning because I wanted to go to University of Pennsylvania and be there, it gave me a lot of skills that I still use today. Jyoti Asundi (29:23) That's fascinating how all the little things serve as little building blocks... Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (29:29) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (29:29) ...to build you into who you are today. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (29:32) Yeah. Aarati Asundi (29:32) And got experience in bioinformatics and coding because I feel like that's such an important skill that people don't really, they kind of have to develop it on the fly, I feel like. They're just kind of like, I've gathered all this data. Now I have to parse through it somehow and see what's significant and see what's not. And can I make these conclusions or not? How do I do this? And then they kind of have to figure out how to do it, you know, or they pass it off to somebody who is actually an expert in bioinformatics and they say, you deal with all this data and then you tell me if it's significant or not. So I love that you got that experience and you learned that for yourself. That's so amazing. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (30:17) Yes, it was a really great experience. And like I said, now I started to sort of formulate an idea of what I really, really, really was interested in, which was neuroscience now and the combination of that with the epigenetics. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Aarati Asundi (30:37) Hi everyone, Aarati here. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. If so, and you wish someone would tell your science story, I founded a science communications company called Sykom, that's S-Y-K-O-M, that can help. Sykom blends creativity with scientific accuracy to create all types of science, communications, content, including explainer videos, slide presentations, science, writing, and more. We work with academic researchers, tech companies, nonprofits, or really any scientists. To help simplify your science, check us out at sykommer.com. That's S-Y-K-O-M-M-E-R.com. Back to the story. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (30:24) Once I finished my undergrad, I decided to start looking for opportunities for graduate school for a PhD program. And it was a very interesting time because it was still COVID. So I didn't have the opportunity to actually visit the schools, which is usually an opportunity that people get. They fly you out and you can see the campus, see the university, talk to the researchers in the lab, right? I was able to do interviews and talk to the people, but I wasn't able to visit. So coming here to Philly, which is a completely different vibe than my hometown. Aarati Asundi (32:01) Like a fourth different, yeah, a fourth different environment that you're in. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (32:05) Yes. I visited Philly before. I didn't know what it was like living in a big city. And I had to make a decision based on just what I had heard in my interviews, how the research was going on here in, at the university of Pennsylvania. And that's what really called me here. And was a shot in the dark. I was like, okay, I got to choose a program. And I decided to choose this program and obviously it was a very difficult move moving across an ocean. I got here and I think it was a great decision. I mean, I love the you know city life is very different but also you know a great environment to be in in terms of the research. Aarati Asundi (32:51) So you're still doing neuroepigenetics, you said? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (32:54) Yes. So now I am in Dr. Elizabeth Heller's lab at the University of Pennsylvania. And my program is in molecular biology with a concentration in epigenetics and genetics. And so we are focused on epigenetics, but in the context of stress disorders and addiction disorders. Aarati Asundi (33:16) Oh! Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (33:16) We know that stress is obviously environmental, so epigenetics is a very kind of ideal concept to be looking at how stress could affect genes or how vice versa, genes and epigenetic regulators could affect stress vulnerability. That's what we're really interested in, what makes people vulnerable, what are the molecular underpinnings of that. And I'm also very interested in sex differences, because we know that women are more likely to experience stress disorders like PTSD and depression, those have higher prevalence in women. Aarati Asundi (33:58) Oh really? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (33:59) Yes. And interestingly enough, in the field for a long time, when you look at the stress literature, most of the research that uses animal models like mice or rats to study stress, they're focused on studying it in male animals. Aarati Asundi (34:18) Oh my god, yes. Jyoti Asundi (34:19) Yes. Aarati Asundi (34:20) This is a constant, constant problem we hear about in science, right? Jyoti Asundi (34:24) No, but actually it's true I work also with animal models. And in the males, the response is usually higher. They get aggravated more quickly the biomarker ⁓ changes are higher. And I do feel in the mouse models that I have observed, the female responses are less, they seem to be more stable somehow. Aarati Asundi (34:50) So overall you're saying that women are more stressed out but we're able to handle it better... Jyoti Asundi (34:55) Yes, right, right. Aarati Asundi (34:55) ...whereas the males are less stressed out as a population but when they do get stressed out they can't handle it. Jyoti Asundi (35:00) But they get aggravated more easily. Yeah, they can't handle it. Aarati Asundi (35:03) That tracks. Jyoti Asundi (35:03) They get aggravated. They get aggravated more easily. And therefore, the responses that you see are bigger at the cellular level. Aarati Asundi (35:10) Hmm. And that's what scientists like to study are the big responses. Jyoti Asundi (35:13) We need to, yeah, because we are looking for that change. We are looking for that response. Because actually, I work on the integrated stress response pathway. And that is at the protein level of stress, normal protein synthesis gets shut down. And the body, almost like a protective mechanism, turns on this stress response pathway. But then once it becomes chronic, that's when the problem occurs. Then that can lead to really, really bad situations that lead to neurodegenerative disorders. So that's where some of it can come from. But it's wonderfully exciting to me to think about it now at a completely different level where I'm... Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (35:59) Right. Jyoti Asundi (36:01) OK, this is what I just said is more at the cellular level. But now at the epigenetic level, I can see where at one level up the gene itself is like all shut up and the hisstones are protecting it and folding it so tightly. It's like, don't do anything. That would be very exciting to understand. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (36:22) Yes, and I mean, like you said, the research in females has been limited because of these other components. Like you said, some of the stress paradigms don't really do anything for the females. So we sort of use the stress paradigms that do show an effect in females and study how females be vulnerable or resilient to stress. Jyoti Asundi (36:47) Yes. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (36:47) We actually have a publication coming up that we're really excited about. It's a collaboration with the University of California at Irvine. And the paper is currently in review. We're really excited about it. And there's a very interesting effect in terms of estrogen levels and how different levels of estrogen in the females could lead to either vulnerability or resilience depending on where the female is in their estrus cycle in their what we would call their estrogen cycle. Yes. Aarati Asundi (37:22) Oh wow. Jyoti Asundi (37:22) Ah! Aarati Asundi (37:25) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (37:27) So, the estrogen guided epigenetically also then? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (37:34) So we looked at how the estrogen itself, because there are estrogen receptors in the brain, we looked at how estrogen itself could change the chromatin and how high levels of estrogen could activate estrogen receptors that then interact with the chromatin, bind to certain chromatin factors, and then show an effect in terms of gene expression. So we looked at how the estrogen actually interacts with the chromatin. And in general, what we find, if I were to summarize that are resilient to acute stress, that are low in estrogen in their hippocampus, in their brain, they have a more repressive chromatin state. They add very important estrogen-related factors and genes. They have a more repressive state. Whereas females that have high estrogen in their hippocampus, they have a more permissive, open chromatin state, very important estrogen-related genes and factors. So we think it's the estrogen in the brain that could be mediating these differences in vulnerability to acute stress, which is very important for like PTSD and depression research, which we know there's female bias in these types of disorders. Jyoti Asundi (38:54) Wow. That is cool. Aarati Asundi (38:54) Yeah. And so then it depends on kind of like how much, you know, estrogen you have that could dictate how hard you're hit by depression or how many symptoms you're showing, how severely, you know, you're impacted by these kinds of ⁓ PTSD or depression kind of disorders. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (39:13) Yes. Aarati Asundi (39:13) And that of course has not ever been studied before because we've been using male models this whole time. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (39:19) So we actually look at males too in terms of estrogen and we do that in general, like circulating levels of estrogen in the blood, we find that males have lower levels of estrogen, but there is local production of estrogen in the brain, in the hippocampus. And we see that males actually have comparable levels of estrogen. So it should, as we see it, should be a combination of many things. Obviously we only looked at estrogen and there's multiple other stress hormones. There's also other sex hormones, testosterone, progesterone, right? We only focused on estrogen. But like you said, we do see that the females that are high in estrogen sort of have to this particular type of stress. And so we're interested in seeing what happens throughout lifetime because we know that women have differences in estrogen throughout their lifetime, right? And there's a lot of more research started now, right? There's a lot more research on menopause and stress susceptibility and all these kinds of interactions between stress and sex hormones. So this is research that, like you said, is sort of very novel right now, but I hope that as we start using more female models, female animal models in science, we can start elucidating, you know, what are these things that are making certain women more susceptible and certain men also more susceptible to stress. Jyoti Asundi (40:53) What about the postpartum depression that women encounter after a pregnancy? Where is their hormone level at that point? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (41:03) Yeah, I actually don't know. We do know that during pregnancy, there are a lot of different molecular mechanisms going on. Jyoti Asundi (41:13) Yeah. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (41:13) You know, I know there was a lot of during COVID times on pregnant women and how they could be more vulnerable or more resilient towards getting COVID infections and stuff like that. But in terms of our research, we still haven't looked at pregnant individuals and how they could be either more at risk or more resilient towards stress. So that could be a really interesting future direction. Jyoti Asundi (41:35) Yeah, there's so much to study, right? Oh my goodness. Aarati Asundi (41:38) Yeah, the other question that I also had was like, I wonder how this might affect any children that that mother may have then in the future. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (41:47) Right. Aarati Asundi (41:48) If they're exposed to some stress or they are naturally epigenetically for whatever reason more susceptible to stress, would that be passed down to their offspring the way DNA is passed down? Would these epigenetic markers be passed down? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (42:05) Yes, that's an amazing question. It's about transgenerational inheritance, right? Aarati Asundi (42:10) Yes. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (42:12) Usually you talk about epigenetics in the context of a cell and a daughter cell, right? That kind of inheritance. But what you're talking about is exposure in a mother in utero or even before they even become pregnant. And that's transgenerational inheritance of epigenetics and that field is growing, it's growing right now. It still has a lot more ways to go, but we do have some evidence of how pre-exposure on- in the mother or in the father could lead to differences in susceptibility in their children. So that is definitely interesting research that I am very, very into as well. Jyoti Asundi (42:55) This sounds fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So many questions to be answered. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (43:02) I know. Aarati Asundi (43:03) There was this one paper that this reminds me of I read when I was back in graduate school where they were studying this certain population, I think in Scandinavia or something that was extremely long lived. And they were trying to figure out like, what was it about this population made them have such a long health span as well as lifespan. And they tracked it back to like their grandfathers or something had lived through like when their grandfathers were teenagers, if they lived through this very particular timeframe where there was a famine and they didn't get the proper nourishment at that time, and it was like a very short window, it was like 14 to 17, your grandfather was in this famine and then now you as grandchild have received some sort of health benefit, some sort of resilience or some sort of thing from that. And it was like only this very select small population from that particular like stressed out factor that your grandfather lived through. It's really, like, amazing how epigenetics can, change depending on your environment and then have these consequences so far down the line. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (44:20) Yes, through generations. It's a very interesting concept. And like you said, there's again more research now relating to that, but there's also research on, for example, refugees' experience and how experiencing displacement, how their children could later be more prone to experiencing PTSD, even if they didn't experience that displacement or didn't experience that refugee status. Jyoti Asundi (44:49) Oh my goodness. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (44:50) So a lot of very interesting research relating to that. Jyoti Asundi (44:54) wow. That is actually a good point to think about. You know, there is so much turmoil in so many parts of the world, politically or for whatever reason, food crisis, these things happening. And to think that what these people are going through, it doesn't matter whether they overcome or not, something goes through which then if you think about it at a very high level is really impacting all of humanity in one way or another Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (45:23) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (45:25) Wow, wow. Aarati Asundi (45:25) Yeah, it's not just the person's nature or nurture anymore. It's like now their mothers and fathers and ancestors nature and nurture that's affecting you. Jyoti Asundi (45:31) Grandparents. Oh my goodness. Okay. Yes. Yes. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (45:34) Yes. Aarati Asundi (45:36) That's amazing. Jyoti Asundi (45:37) That is, that is something to think about. Aarati Asundi (45:40) The one other question I did have for you though is that somewhere in the midst of all of this, you were doing some research on frogs, right? Because the... Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (45:52) Right. Aarati Asundi (45:52) ...the video that you submitted for Galactic Polymath's competition was about the Coqui frog from Puerto Rico that you were talking about. So when did that happen in amongst all of this? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (46:05) Yes, yes. So I forgot to mention that experience, but it was an amazing experience. So that happened actually also during the pandemic around my last year of undergraduate school. And I saw this listing searching for female mentors. They wanted female scientists develop the research project. I was really interested in that, you know, concept about mentorship. And so I applied and this program ended up calling itself the Girls Educating Girls Program. And it was a program to try to motivate girls to pursue STEM careers. And the whole premise of the program was training girls in research and then having them mentor other girls, younger girls in science. And so as part of that program, I developed that research project studying Coqui frogs because that was the thing that I could do because it was virtual, right? And so I had identified some public databases that had recordings of these Coqui frogs. Coquis are native to Puerto Rico. So you hear them every night wherever you are, wherever you are in your... Aarati Asundi (47:24) It's like our crickets. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (47:26) Yes. Aarati Asundi (47:26) Instead of crickets, you have frogs. Nice. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (47:29) Yes, exactly. So you hear them, you're very familiar with them. Whenever you go to Puerto Rico, you're going to hear their sound. And I started wondering if there were differences in their sounds, if there were more than one species, because I didn't know. I didn't know. So I started looking up that information and I found that there's multiple species of Coqui some of them fully native and endemic to the island, and that they all have very different sounds. They all have that pattern. The CO- QUI is two syllable sound, but some of them all have a higher sound, some of them have a sort of slower sound, faster sound. So I started to ⁓ look at differences in these sound patterns and started identifying and seeing if there were similarities in terms of sound and if there was a correlation with that in their genetic or phylogenetic distances. And these Coquis that were genetically more similar had more similar sounds. That's what I was looking into. And I developed that project. I did the research. I listened to these recordings, analyzed them, and I wrote this full research paper, which I then started translating into a more dynamic sort of hands-on lesson for middle school kids. Jyoti Asundi (48:50) Nice. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (48:50) That was the whole objective was trying to bring that research to middle school girls so that they could become interested in genetics and phylogenetics and research in general. And so I took curricular maps from the Department of Education and I tried to transform my research into a lesson these kids. And I was able to present in like a virtual way, of course. But I was able to present in a virtual classroom where I talked about myself as a scientist, what I did, but also my research project. And it was so fun because I the kids sort of, you know, I had a very dynamic presentation where I would have a little button for the Coqui. And every time they would see the Coqui, they would be like, play that, play that. I know there's sound behind that. Aarati Asundi (49:39) Nice. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (49:40) They could hear the different sounds. They could try to identify which sound belonged to which Coqui, stuff like that. It was very fun. And they also had a sheet with activities they could do to sort of teach them how to use tools in the internet. For example, there's the NIH tool for BLASTing genetic sequences. And so I had them do ⁓ exercise. Aarati Asundi (50:03) Oh wow, yes. Jyoti Asundi (50:06) Nice. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (50:06) Yeah to try to identify the Coqui frog species. So it was really, really fun research. And it was a small project. it was something that I did during that transition from undergrad to graduate school. But I feel like I had a lot of fun. And it's why I decided to talk about it in my science communication video, because I feel like it really got a nice reach when I was able to present it in front of the kids. It was really great. Jyoti Asundi (50:34) That is a beautiful way to give back to the community and also such high impact. It may be very short and small but high impact, you don't know how many lives you have transformed with that one. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (50:46) Yeah I know the kids enjoyed it because you once you present science in that kind of fun way, I know kids because it happened to me, right? In my middle school years when I started doing these fun chemistry experiments and all these science fairs, that's when I got interested in science. So I thought, okay, you know, doing something fun in the classroom the kids will get into science eventually. And so I hope, you know, one can only hope that some of the kids that I presented to that day would eventually become future scientists. Jyoti Asundi (51:21) Yes absolutely. Aarati Asundi (51:21) Yes, and it's something very personal to them too. Like you were mentioning this frog is something they're very, very familiar with and they know about. Jyoti Asundi (51:28) They hear it every night. Aarati Asundi (51:30) And so it's like, yeah, you can be a scientist by studying the things around you that you notice every day. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (51:35) Exactly, exactly. Jyoti Asundi (51:36) Yes. Aarati Asundi (51:38) I love that. So okay, we're almost at the end of our time. So I just wanted to ask, What are your goals for the future? What are you going to do after you complete your PhD? Do you have any idea? Do you have no idea? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (51:50) I have some idea, I would like to continue in academia because I really love teaching and mentoring, but I'm also very interested in science communication and specifically science communication in Spanish because I've identified that a lot of the science communication that we see out there is targeted to English speaking individuals, but less so for Spanish speaking individuals and there's a lot of Spanish speaking individuals. Aarati Asundi (52:15) Yes! Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (51:16) So I've been really interested in pursuing science communication as a career and I've started doing so by, you know, doing these science communication competitions, but also I'm developing my own like science blog in Spanish. Aarati Asundi (52:34) Oh cool! Do you wanna give it a little plug? What's it called? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (52:37) Sure, sure. I will give it a plug. It's very recent, but I'm starting to sort of develop blogs where I try to explain scientific concepts or scientific research in a more accessible way. And so it's called Ella Hace Ciencia, She Does Science. Because I also try to focus on female scientists or scientists of Hispanic or Latino descent. Because, you know, I want to inspire people like me to pursue science careers. So that's what I'm into right now. If you want to check it out, Ella Hace Ciencia is the blog. And yeah, that's what I see in my foreseeable future. Aarati Asundi (53:14) That sounds amazing. Oh that's such great work. Jyoti Asundi (53:18) Yes, yes, transformative. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (53:21) Thank you. Aarati Asundi (53:21) And then any advice that you would give to somebody just starting their science career or maybe coming from kind of a similar background and not sure if they want to go into science, what would you say to them? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (53:26) Yes, I think my biggest piece of advice is to believe in yourself and try to overcome that imposter syndrome. I feel like people, especially from where I'm from, they might think that, you know, you can't be a scientist or a scientist might not look like you, but that's not true. A scientist can look like anyone. And I feel like, like you said, through all this resilience, it also makes you a great scientist because also scientists have to be resilient. Aarati Asundi (54:07) Yes! Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (54:08) So I think that my biggest piece of advice is that even though you're going to face imposter syndrome because it's so, so common to do so, try to move past it. Remember that there's a reason why you are where you are and there's a reason why you are doing science. It's because it's important. Jyoti Asundi (54:26) That's a beautiful message. Beautiful message. Aarati Asundi (54:28) Yeah, it's really good advice. Yeah, because I definitely faced imposter syndrome when I was younger. I still do. I mean, you know? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (54:35) Yes, yes, all the time. Aarati Asundi (54:35) But that's just a voice in your head. It's not real. You're great. Like, do what you believe in. Do what your heart tells you to do. don't listen to that little voice in your head that's telling you you're not good enough because you are. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (54:50) Exactly, exactly right. Aarati Asundi (54:53) Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Kiara, for being on the podcast. This was an amazing conversation. I loved it so much. Jyoti Asundi (55:00) Me too. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (55:02) Thank you both. It was an amazing podcast and I am so happy to be talking with you two today because you know seeing you two it also reminds me of I should I should have brought my mother along too. She would be an amazing... Aarati Asundi (55:16) Yes! Jyoti Asundi (55:16) Yes, yes, it would have been so fun! Aarati Asundi (55:18) You should get her involved in your blog maybe. It can be a mother and daughter blog and, you know? Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (55:23) That's a good idea. Jyoti Asundi (55:24) Mother daughter blog. Yeah. She can put in her pearls of wisdom. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (55:29) Exactly, I love it. Jyoti Asundi (55:32) Yeah, you are a great science advocate and please share our work with others as well. Kiara L. Rodríguez-Acevedo (55:37) Of course. Thank you so much for having me. Jyoti Asundi (55:41) Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Aarati Asundi (55:43) Thanks for listening. If you have suggestion for a story we should cover or thoughts you want to share about an episode, reach out to us at smartteapodcast.com. You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Blue Sky @smartteapodcast and listen to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And leave us a rating or comment. It helps us grow. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. See you next time.