
Kiran Girdhar, PhD
About Me
Kiran Girdhar, PhD, is a junior faculty with appointments in both the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences. She earned her doctoral degree in biophysics from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, USA. Prior to her PhD, Dr. Girdhar completed her Master of Science in Material Science at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and holds a Bachelor's degree in Materials Science Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, India.
Dr. Girdhar's current research endeavors revolve around unfolding the biological insights of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders through the application of advanced sequencing techniques. Her past work includes a focus on deciphering the role of the three-dimensional epigenome in neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, utilizing extensive multi-omics data derived from human postmortem brain samples. Dr. Girdhar has been recognized for her contributions with prestigious awards, including the Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship (2021-2023), the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Travel Award (2022), and the Promising Young Investigator Travel Award from the Schizophrenia International Research Society (2019).
Language
English
Position
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR | Psychiatry, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR | Genetics and Genomic Sciences
Publications
Selected Publications
- Functional implications of polygenic risk for schizophrenia in human neurons. P. J. Michael Deans, Kayla G. Retallick-Townsley, Aiqun Li, Carina Seah, Jessica Johnson, Judit Garcia Gonzalez, Evan Cao, Nadine Schrode, Alex Yu, Sam Cartwright, Georgios Voloudakis, Wen Zhang, Minghui Wang, John F. Fullard, Kiran Girdhar, Eli Stahl, Schahram Akbarian, Bin Zhang, Panos Roussos, Paul O’Reilly, Laura M. Huckins, Kristen J. Brennand. Nature Communications
- Several novel classes of small regulatory RNAs show widespread changes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and extensive linkages to critical brain processes. Stepan Nersisyan, Phillipe Loher, Iliza Nazeraj, Zhiping Shao, John F. Fullard, Georgios Voloudakis, Kiran Girdhar, Panos Roussos, Isidore Rigoutsos. Translational Psychiatry
- Dynamic Alterations in the Blood Transcriptome Characterize Drug Use Behavior and Co-Morbidities in Cocaine Use Disorder: A Preliminary Study. Chinwe Nwaneshiudu, Kiran Girdhar, Steven P Kleopoulos, Zhiping Shao, John F Fullard, Eduardo R Butelman, Muhammad A Parvaz, Rita Z Goldstein, Nelly Alia-Klein, Panos Roussos. European Journal of Neuroscience