B.S., Yale University M.A.L.S., Wesleyan University Ph.D., Harvard University: Harvard Medical School

Neurological diseases represent a growing health challenge in the 21st century, especially as human populations live longer, leading to an increased potential for diseases stemming from neurodegeneration, among other causes. I am interested in dietary therapies for neurological disease. Using Drosophila fruit flies as a model system, my groups studies specifically how caloric restriction, or diets that mimic caloric restriction (particularly the ketogenic diet), may prevent onset or ameliorate symptoms of prevalent neurological diseases such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. To learn more about the interplay between diet and disease and to try to identify molecular mediators of alternative diets, my research group has used techniques ranging from manipulation of fly genetics to knock out or over-express gene products, to running Western blots for quantification of expression levels of Alzheimer’s-related proteins, to behavioral analysis of seizure-like phenotypes. In so doing, we hope to identify potential pharmacological targets for disease treatments that may be able to replace complicated and strenuous dietary regimens with simple administration of drugs.