Radhika Patnala

Radhika Patnala is an Indian neuroscientist and scientific illustrator. She is the founder of Sci-Illustrate.
==Early Life and Education==
Radhika Patnala was born on June 9th, 1988 in Visakhapatnam, India. Her mother is an interior designer and both of her parents were entrepreneurs.
Patnala received her bachelor’s degree at Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management in India. She traveled to Australia and received a master's degree with honors in Biotechnology from the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Cancer Biology at the Australian National University. She received her doctorate at the National University of Singapore, where she studied neuroinflammation, epigenetics, and ischemic stroke.
== Research ==
During her time at the National University of Singapore, Patnala’s research consisted of investigating techniques to improve disease outcomes such as candidate gene studies. Additionally, her research had a heavy focus on microscopy, shown in her credited publications. 
In 2013, Patnala published a review of in silico techniques available to researchers studying associations between risk alleles and clinical outcomes of particular diseases. In 2016, she published a study assessing the neuroprotective effects of Histone deacetylase inhibitor inhibitors and their potential role in reducing inflammation, with the long-term goal of creating a safer treatment for ischemic stroke.
== Career ==
After deciding to no longer pursue a traditional career in academia, Patnala sought to combine her passions for art and science through an alternate career path as an entrepreneur. In 2017, Patnala founded Sci-Illustrate which is a company based in Munich, Germany that provides scientific illustration, marketing, and business development services to universities, life science companies, and biotech companies. Sci-Illustrate has been featuring women in science through art and words for the last two years, and the company has been commissioned for a number of projects. Patnala’s work was featured on the cover of Cell (journal) in September 2019 in collaboration with the Genome Institute and Duke–NUS Medical School|Duke-NUS Medical School. Her work was also featured on the cover of Nature Review Neurology for the entire year of 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Patnala created a 10-part series of illustrations titled “COVID Dreams” which was inspired by the coronavirus experience. The project was featured in BBC news along with the artwork of other women created during the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2021, Patnala was selected to be featured in a UNESCO exhibit highlighting the contributions of 54 women in STEM from across the globe in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Patnala has also been a keynote speaker at WHO. 
== Publications ==
* Patnala R, Arumugam T, Gupta N, Dheen S. HDAC Inhibitor Sodium Butyrate-Mediated Epigenetic Regulation Enhances Neuroprotective Function of Microglia During Ischemic Stroke (springer.com) (October 8, 2016).
* Patnala R, Clements J, Batra. Candidate gene association studies: a comprehensive guide to useful in silicotools | BMC Genomic Data | Full Text (biomedcentral.com) (May 9, 2013).
Category:1988 births
Category:Indian neuroscientists
Category:Scientific illustrators