IMG_1006.jpg

PRIYA PRAKASH

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

priya.prakash@nyulangone.org | @pryprk

Born and raised in Bangalore India, Priya obtained her Bachelor's in Biotechnology Engineering (2009-13). She immigrated to the United States in 2013 for her Master's in Biological Sciences at Purdue University, and was admitted into the prestigious Purdue University Interdisciplinary Life Sciences (PULSe) graduate program in 2015.

Priya's doctoral work in Dr. Gaurav Chopra's research group focused on determining how microglia become dysfunctional in chronic inflammation. She developed several new chemical tools: (1) a robust method for expressing, purifying, and characterizing recombinant human Aβ; (2) a pH-sensitive fluorophore conjugate of Aβ (AβpH) to identify and separate Aβ-specific phagocytic and non-phagocytic glia; and (3) new lysosomal, mitochondrial, and nuclei-targeting pH-activable fluorescent probes to visualize subcellular organelles in live glia.

Priya received numerous awards in graduate school including the competitive Eli Lilly-Stark Neurosciences predoctoral research fellowship in neurodegeneration, the PULSe outstanding graduate student in research award, the Guy Mellon award in analytical chemistry, and the SURF outstanding graduate student mentor award, young investigator award by the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation.

As a postdoctoral fellow in the Liddelow lab, Priya will be delving deeper into glial biology by focusing on astrocyte functions. She is interested in understanding the mechanisms by which reactive astrocytes induce neuronal death and how we can manipulate such pathways to change disease outcomes.

KEY PUBLICATIONS

(* = equal contribution)

  1. Prakash P, Erdjument-Bromage H, O'Dea MR, Munson CN, Labib D, Fossati V, Neubert TA, Liddelow SA (2023) Proteomic profiling of interferon-responsive reactive astrocytes in rodent and human. Glia. PMID: 38031883.

  2. Guttenplan KA, Weigel MK*, Prakash P*, Wijewardhane PR, Hasel P, Rufen-Blanchette U, Münch AE, Blum JA, Fine J, Neal MC, Bruce KD, Gitler AD, Chopra G, Liddelow SA, Barres BA (2021) Neurotoxic reactive astrocytes induce cell death via saturated lipids. Nature 599:102–107. PMID: 34616039.

  3. Prakash P, Manchanda P, Paouri E, Bisht K, Sharma K, Wijewardhane PR, Randolph CE, Clark MG, Fine J, Thayer EA, Crockett A, Gasmi N, Stanko S, Prayson RA, Zhang C, Davalos D, Chopra G. Amyloid β induces lipid droplet-mediated microglial dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease. bioRxiv 2023.06.04.543525.

  4. Prakash P*, Jethava KP*, Korte N*, Izquierdo P*, Favuzzi E, Rose IVL, Guttenplan KA, Manchanda P, Dutta S, Rochet JC, Fishell G, Liddelow SA, Attwell D, Chopra G (2021) Monitoring phagocytic uptake of amyloid β into glial cell lysosomes in real time. Chem Sci 12(32):10901-10918. PMID: 34476070.

  5. Prakash P*, Lantz TC*, Jethava KP, Chopra G (2019). Rapid, refined, and robust method for expression, purification, and characterization of recombinant human amyloid beta 1-42. Methods Protoc 2(2):48. PMID: 31181684.