CNEN

Currently, I’m a post-doctoral scholar at UC San Diego (UCSD) where I am a trainee on the Neuroplasticity of Aging training grant. I study Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis and identify blood-based biomarkers for early AD diagnosis. During my doctoral studies, my primary research areas included neurodegeneration, synaptic plasticity and neural repair with a specialized focus on dendritic spine remodeling following traumatic brain injury. Concurrently, I hold an adjunct faculty position at Coleman University, where I teach an undergraduate level general biology course.

Prior to obtaining my Ph.D., I started my career as a technician preparing neuronal cell cultures for electrophysiological studies at the University of Virginia. Soon after, I went on to obtain a Master’s in Biochemistry from Georgetown University.  During my Master’s thesis, I investigated signaling mechanisms that attributed to PCAP – induced cell survival of neuronally-differentiated PC12 cells following serum withdrawal. My research led to me to accept a full-time position as a Post-baccalaureate IRTA Technical Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). As a IRTA fellow, I continued the studies that I initiated during my Master’s thesis. Following that appointment, I returned to Georgetown to pursue my Ph.D. in Neuroscience. My doctoral thesis research focused on developing an extremely mild, highly repetitive, sports injury- like animal model of mild traumatic brain injury (r-mTBI). With our new model, I was able to determine the acute and chronic effects of r-mTBI on the development of brain pathology, neuronal architecture changes, and functional outcome in mice. Additionally, I determined whether genetic risk factors (APOE genotype) influenced severity and recovery following r-mTBI. 

During my doctoral studies, I was successful in securing several fellowship awards which afforded me numerous training, travel, public speaking and grant writing opportunities. During that time, I also developed a keen interest in science administration, policy and advocacy. I interned at the Potomac Institute for Public Policy (PIPS) where I worked closely with White House officials and policy analysts in order to create an amendment to the 2013 White House BRAIN Initiative. Because of this unique opportunity, I want to transition out of academia and pursue a career in this field following my post-doctoral positon at UCSD.

The overarching goal of this pilot grant is to elucidate how alpha-synuclein contributes to the pathology of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). I am particularly interested in how beta-amyloid and alpha-synuclein synergize to disrupt the intracellular vesicular pathway resulting in neuronal dysfunction and aggregate transmission. I am fortunate to be mentored by Dr. Robert Rissman, the director of the UCSD Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study Biomarker Core. Dr. Rissman’s research has focused on understanding the many factors that contribute to AD pathology and investigating potential biomarkers to detecting AD progression.  In addition, he has an extensive knowledge of amyloid and tauopathies. The talented senior staff of the Rissman Laboratory provides additional support and knowledge as many members have dedicated more than 10 years to studying neurological diseases. My research plan proposes using a novel cell-based system to study the pathology of AD within a human context by using human inducible pluripotent stem cells. Despite the possible setbacks with this approach, my graduate studies and post-baccalaureate experience have provided me with the experience and techniques to bring this project to fruition. During my graduate studies, I received an NRSA fellowship to assess the influence of nicotine-mediated GABAergic activation on reward behavior. I developed a cre-depended gene expression system to selectively activate midbrain GABAergic neurons with nicotine in vivo, leading to changes in reward-associated behaviors. The gene expression system has been used to also characterize a potential role of medial habenular neurons in nicotine-mediated anxiety. I plan to bring my experience as well as utilize the resources and mentorship available to me assessing the complex biology behind AD.

Saranya worked on blast-traumatic brain injury for her Ph.D. under the co-mentorship of Drs. Malissa Sarantinoranont and Ghatu Subhash at University of Florida where she developed quantitative high-speed imaging methods to define injury markers and applied towards understanding cavitation-induced damage via novel experiments in a rat model. As a postdoctoral researcher, she is currently working on uncovering the molecular perturbations in Alzheimer's Disease using transcriptome data and is interested in understanding genetic substrate for cognitive impairment.