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Dr Manikanta Receives AHA Fellowship to Investigate Platelet-Dependent Nucleic Acid-Sensing Pathways

Manikanta/LinkedIn

Jan 10, 2026, 15:02

Dr Manikanta Receives AHA Fellowship to Investigate Platelet-Dependent Nucleic Acid-Sensing Pathways

Versiti Blood Research Institute shared on LinkedIn:

”Congratulations to Manikanta ., PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Prithu Sundd, PhD’s lab, on receiving a two-year American Heart Association (AHA) Postdoctoral fellowship totaling $156,000.

Through this AHA fellowship, Dr. Manikanta will investigate how platelet-dependent nucleic acid-sensing pathways contribute to the development of lung thrombosis in sickle cell disease. (Lung thrombosis is the formation of dangerous blood clots in the lungs.)

The long-term goal of this project is to reduce life-threatening complications in high-rick sickle cell disease patients.

But what makes this work unique to VBRI is the collaborative ecosystem powering it.

This project brings together VBRI scientists, MCW/Froedtert Adult Sickle Cell Clinic, the Versiti-Clinical Trials Research Office (CTRO), along with new resources available at Versiti on King and the inception of the MCW Sickle Cell Bio Bank.

Together, these necessary resources enable translational research that connects the research in lab to patient care in the clinic.

“A collaborative team effort on such scale is hard to envision anywhere else in this country,” says Dr. Manikanta.

Collaborators on this project (“Platelet-dependent Nucleic Acid Sensing Promotes Pulmonary Thrombosis in Sickle Cell Disease”) include Tomasz Kaminski, PhD, and Joshua Field, MD.”

Dr Manikanta Receives AHA Fellowship to Investigate Platelet-Dependent Nucleic Acid-Sensing Pathways