Sabrina Ghosh (CAS’21) will enter a PhD program in pharmacology at the University of Cambridge this September. Her research will use models of accelerated aging to study and identify novel strategies to treat age-related diseases and conditions.

Accolades

Young Alum Wins Prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship

Sabrina Ghosh (CAS’21) will study aging-related diseases at the University of Cambridge

In high school, Sabrina Ghosh took an after-school job working in a local senior living center to make some extra money. A friendship she formed with one of the residents, a Korean War veteran, was transformative.

“We talked all the time, and learned a lot about each other,” Ghosh (CAS’21) says. “But then I saw the process of aging play out and the decline in his health as I went through high school. It was at the same time that I also started to become interested in science as a career path. I originally thought I wanted to be a geriatric doctor, but I realized I didn’t want to just treat the patient—I wanted to find the root cause of the disease.”

This fall, Ghosh will enter a PhD program in pharmacology at the University of Cambridge, where she plans to conduct research using models of accelerated aging to study and identify novel strategies to treat age-related diseases and conditions. She will do so thanks to a highly competitive Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which was established in 2000 by a $210 million donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the University of Cambridge.

Every year, the program offers about 80 full-ride scholarships to outstanding applicants from countries outside the United Kingdom to pursue a postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge. Candidates are chosen based on factors such as intellectual ability, passion, and leadership potential, as the mission of the program is to build a global network of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others.

Jeff Berg, BU’s director of national and international scholarships, says the Gates Cambridge program is one of the most selective and prestigious international awards out there, and that Ghosh is one of only 23 Americans selected from thousands of applicants for the 2023–2024 cohort.

“We are proud that Sabrina is the second Gates Cambridge recipient from BU in the last three years, which is a huge honor for the University and demonstrates our strong international reputation as a producer of highly accomplished young scholars,” Berg says.

(He hopes that news of Ghosh’s honor inspires more BU students to explore scholarships and fellowships they may be eligible for and says his office is a great resource for those with questions and seeking assistance.)

Ghosh, currently a research assistant in Harvard University’s stem cell and regenerative biology department, says she learned she was selected to be a Gates Cambridge scholar last winter while on her lunch break.

“I immediately FaceTimed my family, and we all started screaming,” she says. “It was a really happy moment for us because I think it encapsulated a lot of work over the past couple of years. I really dedicated myself to research and science, and so it meant a lot that I was recognized in this way.” She says she is especially thankful to her BU mentor, Richard Giadone (CAMED’20), now a postdoc researcher at Harvard.

Ghosh grew up in Allentown, Pa., and was hooked on science from an early age. She founded a Science Olympiad team while in high school, and volunteered in a Lehigh University lab in her spare time. “I knew that science was going to be a huge part of my life even then,” she says.

Once accepted to BU, but before she even matriculated, Ghosh researched internship opportunities in the University’s labs. She was thrilled when BU’s Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) hired her. “At the time they hadn’t had that many undergrads yet, and it was a very exciting place to be,” she says.

Her independent research projects used cell-based models and sequencing techniques in an attempt to discover treatment strategies for aging-related disease—or, more specifically, systemic amyloid disease. Systemic amyloid disease mainly affects the elderly, and is a class of disorders caused by protein misfolding and aggregation that leads to the deposition of amyloid fibrils (potentially toxic protein deposits) in body tissues and organs. She was also able to shadow physicians at Boston Medical Center’s Amyloidosis Center.

A neuroscience major, Ghosh led a second life of sorts: she minored in cinema and media studies at CAS, was vice president of the BU Marketing Club and a member of BU’s preprofessional cinema fraternity, Delta Kappa Alpha.

She will move to the UK in September to start her three-to-four-year PhD program. Asked about her long-term plans, Ghosh says she isn’t totally certain, though she knows she will dedicate her life to treating aging-related diseases. Experts predict a looming public health crisis worldwide because of the growing population, both in size and in the proportion of older people to younger ones.

“What that means is that the burden of aging-related diseases is going to hit the health care system extremely hard [at the same time],” Ghosh says. “It’s going to cost the healthcare system trillions of dollars, and that’s more than what we can deal with right now.”

While innovation in the aging-related therapeutic field is accelerating, Ghosh says, it’s still not moving fast enough. “I think that if we understood more about the science and why we should be concerned, more people would listen,” she says.

Outside of her research, Ghosh enjoys being creative, taking part in everything from salsa dance classes to guitar lessons to singing classes. She volunteers for the Cambridge Women’s Center as well as Barakat Bundle, a nonprofit that provides healthcare packages to families in South Asia, with the goal of ending preventable infant and maternal mortality.

“It’s really important to me that I’m always out there, and I’m meeting people and learning different things,” Ghosh says, harkening back to her involvement in film and marketing during her time at BU. “I’ve always wanted to be a scientist that looks outside of that [world], because how can you be a public health leader if you don’t know how to look at science from different lenses and different perspectives?”

Interested in learning more about how to apply for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship? Applications for the 2024–2025 cohort open in September; more information can be found here.