Rate My Professor Prasanti Kotagiri

Dr Prasanti Kotagiri is a clinician-scientist holding joint positions as Laboratory Head in the Department of Immunology at Monash University and Consultant Nephrologist at Alfred Hospital. She completed her undergraduate medical degree (MBBS) at Monash University and a Bachelor of Medical Science (BMedSc) at the University of Oxford under Prof Margaret Esiri. Following Nephrology specialist training in Melbourne in 2018, she undertook a PhD at the University of Cambridge under Prof Ken Smith, supported by a RACP Jacquot Fellowship, focusing on B cell receptor repertoire and immune transcriptome in autoimmunity, infection, and vaccination. In 2022, she received a University of Melbourne McKenzie Fellowship and served as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine, designing the Melbourne Medical School Translation Medicine course. In 2023, she held a Fulbright Fellowship at Stanford University in Prof Scott Boyd's lab, utilizing CITE-seq and immune receptor sequencing for B cell antigenic breadth post-infection and vaccination. Since joining Monash in 2024, her laboratory investigates immune responses through antigen-specific cell profiling, CITE-seq, and repertoire sequencing.

Kotagiri's research centers on B cell receptor repertoire and immune transcriptome in aging, autoimmunity, and transplantation. Key projects include profiling autoreactive B cells in IgA nephropathy (with Stanford University), modeling age-related B cell populations in autoimmunity (with Cambridge University), and characterizing donor-specific B cells for transplantation outcomes (with Austin Health and Monash Health). She has secured NHMRC Emerging Leadership Level 1 Fellowship, RACP Jacquot Research Entry and Establishment Fellowships, Charles and Sylvia Viertel Clinical Investigator Award, and Fulbright Futures Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her publications feature first-author works in Nature, Immunity, and Nature Communications, including 'Age-related immune response heterogeneity to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine BNT162b2' (Nature, 2021), 'Longitudinal analysis reveals that delayed bystander CD8+ T cell activation and early immune pathology distinguish severe COVID-19 from mild disease' (Immunity, 2021), 'B cell receptor repertoire kinetics after SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination' (Cell Reports, 2022), and 'Iron dysregulation and inflammatory stress erythropoiesis associates with long-term outcome of COVID-19' (Nature Immunology, 2024). Her contributions advance therapeutic strategies in kidney disease and immunology.