Kulkarni Lab
Dr. Kulkarni works on discovering variation in non-coding regions of the genome and their relevance to human health and disease.
Featured Research Areas
Several genetic factors can modulate HIV-1 disease. However, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) across populations have shown that some of the identified disease-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms are in non-coding regions. Due to lack of functional explanation of the observed associations, these host genetic factors cannot be currently utilized as vaccine or drug targets. We are interested in studying non-coding gene variation that modulates HIV-1 disease.
Role of alternative 3’UTRs in gene regulation and diseases.
Several human genes utilize alternative polyadenylation to generate transcript isoforms with varying lengths of 3’untranslated regions.
Effect of lncRNA on HIV disease.
Less than 3% of the entire transcriptome is protein coding, signifying that non-coding RNAs represent most of the human transcriptome.