Kaylan Tripathy

Kaylan Tripathy is currently an MD/PhD student in the neuroscience graduate program at Wash U. Previously, he worked with Virginia Lee and John Trojanowski at Penn on the role of TDP-43 in neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis, and with Brad Schlaggar and Steve Petersen at Wash U on cortical parcellation in children using resting state functional connectivity. Tripathy’s summer 2016 rotation project was to refine a purification scheme and apply newer mass spectrometry approaches to study the full range of amyloid beta proteoforms found in human cerebrospinal fluid. Prior and ongoing work in the lab has looked for these proteoforms by studying intact (undigested) a-beta in Alzheimer’s disease patient brains. His project aimed to take a top-down approach to look for these species by studying intact a-beta in human CSF. The goal is to eventually identify a fingerprint for Alzheimer’s disease, wherein valuable diagnostic and prognostic information can be extracted from the levels of various a-beta proteoforms in a patient’s CSF. In the process, we would also glean valuable information about the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease. Outside of the lab, Tripathy volunteers with a few community service projects focused on medical care and teaching, and he also sings and plays guitar as part of a student band.
Project Title: Studying intact amyloid-beta proteoforms in human CSF