Biological & Innovative Researchers

Habil Zare, PhD

Habil Zare, Ph.D. is a computational biologist. A current exemplar project in Dr. Zare’s lab is integrative gene network analysis, inspired by biological processes in a cell often requiring intricate coordination between multiple genes and proteins. The goal of the project is to infer useful biological and clinical information from large networks of thousands of genes. His studies have developed an integrative approach to analyze co-expression and DNA methylation patterns in a single model. Each node in this network represents a gene, and the connections (edges) are weighted based on the gene expression and DNA methylation data, i.e., the more associated two genes are, the more weight is assigned to the connection between them. This approach has led to identification of robust biomarkers that are useful in prognostication and diagnosis of several cancers.

Studies also include investigating the applications of this approach in the study of dementia including: mechanisms of resilience to Alzheimer’s disease, prognostication, identification of subtypes of dementia based on molecular factors and variation in phenotypes, delineation of molecular differences and the common pathways, between subtypes, etc. Additional research covers ways to integrate other omics data into the network including micro RNA and genomic data.

Lab collaborates with other scholars at the Biggs Institute through data analysis and study design.

Jamie Walker, MD, PhD

Studies focus on dementia and successful aging. “Successful agers” are resistant or resilient to the Alzheimer-type neuropathologic changes that develop in many people as they age. Understanding the process of resistance or resilience to these neuropathologic changes in successful agers will bring insight into mechanisms of prevention and ideally lead o the development of therapeutic interventions for dementia.

Sudha Seshadri, MD

Dr. Seshadri is a senior investigator of the Framingham Heart Study since 1998, leading the study’s clinical neurology and neurogenesis cores since 2005. She is the principal investigator on 8 NIH funded grants and is an investigator, subcontract principal investigator and consultant to 12 additional grants.

She has served on the Editorial Board for Neurology and Stroke, chaired a standing NIH Study Section (Neurology, Aging and Musculoskeletal Epidemiology) and has over 320 peer-reviewed publications (H-index 79, i10 index 209), including 57 in 2016.

Dr. Seshadri helped to establish the neurology phenotype working group within the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium.

She lectures extensively, nationally and internationally, on Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and the genetics of stroke and vascular brain injury.

Qitao Ran, PhD

Research surrounds the exploration of mitochondria. Mitochondria are organelles with multiple functions essential for neural activities and the dysfunction of which is implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease, especially for sporadic and late-onset cases. Research focuses to illustrate the underlying mechanisms of mitochondrial dysfunction in relation to Alzheimer’s disease and aging, with a goal of identifying novel targets for prevention and treatment of the disease.