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As originally published in The Physiologist
Volume 45, Number 1, February 2002, page 13

Sunita Puri

Sunita Puri, an APS 2001 Undergraduate Summer Research Fellow (UGSRF), was recently named a 2002 Rhodes Scholar. As one of the 32 scholars selected, Puri successfully competed against 318 colleagues for the award.

Puri, an undergraduate student from Yale University, participated in the UGSRF program with her host, P. Darrell Neufer, from the John B. Pierce Laboratory, Yale University School of Medicine. 

Her research project investigated the role of UCP-3 gene expression in regulating and reflecting metabolic changes in rats. UCPs are mitochondrial proteins that uncouple respiration from ATP synthesis and are believed to play a role in energy expenditure. Expression of UCP3 mRNA is dramatically regulated by a number of metabolic challenges (including exercise, food intake, diet), providing evidence that regulation of the UCP3 gene is an adaptive response. However, the molecular basis for the metabolic regulation of UCP3 in vivo and the associated impact on metabolic balance are controversial and paradoxical. 

Puri is originally from Los Angeles and is currently a senior majoring in cultural anthropology. She recently also won the Rivers Prize, a national undergraduate paper prize sponsored by the Society for Medical Anthropology, for a paper on medical issues related to domestic violence that will be published in Medical Anthropology Quarterly. This research was supported by five fellowships from Yale University and the Ford Foundation. Annually, Puri has given a lecture to first-year Yale medical students on eating disorders in minority communities and how physicians can best treat those patients.

Rhodes Scholars are chosen on the basis of high academic achievement, integrity of character, a spirit of unselfishness, respect for others, potential for leadership, and physical vigor. The Rhodes Trust pays all college and university fees, provides a stipend to cover necessary expenses while in residence in Oxford, as well as during vacations, and transportation to and from England.

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