Muralidharan Sargurupremraj, PhD
Assistant Professor
Personal Statement:
Muralidharan Sargurupremraj, PhD, is a geneticist with both statistical and molecular biology experience. Dr. Sargurupremraj is an active member of several large-scale consortiums and lead multiple projects generating primary genetic association evidence for complex neurological, neurodegenerative diseases and their various endophenotypes (white matter hyperintensities, brain infarcts, memory performance, etc.). His specific interest is studying the vascular contribution to Alzheimer’s disease – a common form of dementia that often co-exists with cerebrovascular disease. He is involved in the systematic exploration for biological pleiotropy and causal inference using instrumental variable methods with a specific focus on gene prioritization strategies for augmenting the performance of disease-risk prediction that is based on common genetic variants. Dr. Sargurupremraj is also experienced in the application of multi-omics data to infer cell/tissue type specificity in cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) both at the bulk and single-cell resolution. His renewed interest is in studying gene-environment interaction by involving epigenetic information and a specific class of genetic elements that transpose in the genome using robust statistical methods particularly in relation to the magnetic resonance imaging markers for cSVD and atrophy.
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Education
2014 - PhD - Quantitative Genetics - Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany
2009 - Master of Science - Molecular Genetics - University of Leicester, UK
Training
2020 - Postdoctoral fellowship - University of Bordeaux, L'Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM), France
Research
Dr. Sargurupremraj’s current research interests encompass three main areas, all related to stroke and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD):
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- Utilizing multi-omics approaches and single-cell techniques to explore drug repurposing potential for cSVD and intermediary markers of Alzheimer’s disease.
- Investigating gene-environment interactions within an exposome framework to understand geographical and regional differences in disease onset.
- Investigating the gene-regulatory function of evolutionary fixed mobile genetic elements (class of genetic units capable of autonomous translocation) and their implications in disease susceptibility.
Grants
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- Principal Investigator on the Alzheimer’s Association Research Grant (AARG) (2023-2026) – “Studying transposable elements abundance in AD brains”
- Principal Investigator and recipient of the 2024 William and Ella Owens Medical Research Foundation grant (2024-2026); investigating “Genome-wide Gene-Environment Interactions: Air Pollution Exposure, Brain Structure, and Alzheimer’s Disease”
- Co-investigator on multiple other NIH/NIA R01 grants