Pittsburgh, PA, August 3, 2023 – Namrata Kumari, PhD, a post-doctoral research associate in Abby Olsen’s research lab, has been accepted into the Alzheimer’s Association International Research Fellowship Grant Program. The objective of this award is to increase the number of highly trained investigators from diverse backgrounds who's basic, clinical and social/behavioral research interests are grounded in the advanced methods and experimental approaches needed to solve problems related to Alzheimer's and all dementias in general and in health disparities populations.
The AARF-D is a unique opportunity that allows Dr. Kumari to gain the critical technical skills from her mentorship team: Drs. Abby Olsen, Gulnaz Begum, Sarah Berman and Julia Kofler. Additionally, as a foreign national Dr. Kumari is not eligible for NIH-based training fellowships; this fellowship will allow her to benefit from the structured resources of the Alzheimer’s Association as well as attend their annual meetings to present her work to key leaders in the field.
Dr. Kumari plans to determine the mechanism of adenylate kinases in dementia with Lewy bodies using three complementary systems: Drosophila, mouse primary cortical neurons and astrocytes in co-culture, and human post-mortem brain tissue. This work will increase our understanding of these genes and advance them as potential therapeutic targets.
