Most researchers spend years trying to get Mayo Clinic's attention. Dr Bhawna Diwan did it by proposing three research projects the lab had never attempted. They said yes.
Assistant Professor Bhawna Diwan of Shoolini University has secured a postdoctoral fellowship at Mayo Clinic, USA. Mayo Clinic has been ranked the world's No.1 hospital by U.S. News and World Report for 36 consecutive years. It treats patients from 135 countries and features among the top five medical research institutions globally by the Nature Index 2025. The stipend-bearing fellowship runs for a minimum of one year and can be extended depending on the time required to complete the research. Asst Prof Bhawna Diwan will join the Regenerative Medicine and Longevity Laboratory to work on technology that could change how diseases are treated worldwide. She joins in September 2026.
The Road to Mayo Clinic
Born and raised in Himachal Pradesh, Asst Prof Bhawna Diwan completed her bachelor's degree in Chandigarh before returning to the hills for her master's from Himachal Pradesh University. When she joined Shoolini University to pursue her PhD, the university recognised her potential and offered her a Junior Research Fellowship — covering her tuition and paying her to research full-time.
Her doctoral work focused on cellular senescence, the process by which ageing, dysfunctional cells accumulate in the body and release toxic signals that drive some of the world's deadliest conditions — cardiovascular disease, muscular degeneration, and chronic gut inflammation. Her research examined how targeted nutrition could slow this process. She also investigated why younger populations are increasingly prone to disorders such as colitis and irritable bowel syndrome. The work produced published papers and caught the attention of a Mayo Clinic laboratory working on the same questions.
At Mayo Clinic, Asst Prof Bhawna Diwan will work on 3D bioprinted skin — technology that prints human cells into functioning tissue structures for drug testing. For decades, medicine has relied on animal models sharing roughly 95% of human biology. That missing 5% has caused countless promising treatments to fail in clinical trials. Bioprinted human tissue closes that gap. It is faster, more accurate, and requires neither animal nor human subjects.
Behind the fellowship is a PhD that began at Shoolini. Associate Professor Rohit Sharma supervised Asst Prof Bhawna Diwan's doctoral research and is one of India's leading researchers in cellular senescence. His paper, 'A Cellular Senescence-Centric Integrated Approach to Understanding Organismal Aging', earned a citation in Nature Reviews Nephrology, one of the most prestigious journals in biomedical science, backed by Rs 1.07 crore in funding from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Asst Prof Bhawna Diwan's fellowship carries that work forward at the highest level of medical research.
Grateful for the foundation Shoolini provided, Bhawna Diwan credited Founder Chancellor Prof PK Khosla, Vice Chancellor Prof Atul Khosla, Registrar Prof Sunil Puri, and Assoc Prof Rohit Sharma for standing by her at every stage. Assoc Prof Rohit Sharma said, "Bhawna Diwan is among the finest researchers I have mentored. Her continuing this work at Mayo Clinic is no coincidence — the science we are doing here is credible at the highest levels. She has made this university proud."
Muskan Dua