Dr. Juttukonda is a physician-scientist and neonatologist studying early life nasal mucosal development using patient specimens. She completed her MD/PhD training at Vanderbilt University, where her thesis focused on bacterial-host interactions in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Skaar Dr. Juttukonda completed pediatrics residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program and neonatology fellowship in the Harvard Neonatal-Perinatal Fellowship Program. During residency, she investigated the impact of COVID-19 during pregnancy on placental immunopathology with Drs. Elizabeth Taglauer and Elisha Wachman. As a post-doctoral research fellow with Dr. Jose Ordovas-Montanes at Boston Children's Hospital, Dr. Juttukonda studied the pathogenesis of viral infection in pediatric nasal swab samples.

Dr. Juttukonda is currently studying the development of the nasal mucosa in premature infants. The nasal mucosa is a key barrier tissue for filtering and humidifying air before it reaches the lungs and is also an important tissue for immune surveillance and defense against respiratory pathogens. The nasal mucosa of premature infants develops without the beneficial presence of bioactive substances in amniotic fluid and is instead exposed to air, colonized by bacteria, and confronted with foreign materials in the form of nasogastric tubes and nasal continuous airway positive pressure (CPAP). My overarching hypothesis is that epithelial and immune cell development is dysregulated in the setting of preterm birth and contributes to long-term respiratory morbidities in patients who are born extremely preterm. To study this, we are building a biobank of longitudinal nasal swabs in neonates born preterm and term and profiling them with cutting edge ‘omics technologies, including single-cell RNA-sequencing, and studying mechanisms of epithelial response using air-liquid interface culture of primary cells.