VCP Scientific Focus Group

Sushobhna Batra is a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Marc Diamond’s lab in the Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Originally from Delhi, India, Dr. Batra moved to the United States for her studies, earning a bachelors in Biochemistry and Biology with a minor in Pharmacology and Toxicology from SUNY at Buffalo. She then joined the Immunology graduate program at UTSW for her PhD. In the Diamond lab, she studies the cellular mechanisms governing the aggregation of the tau protein, the underlying cause of neurodegenerative tauopathies such as Alzheimer’s. In her thesis work, she investigated the cellular proteins involved in the early stages of tau aggregation. Using an unbiased proximity labeling screen of nascent tau aggregates, she identified VCP. Through further pharmacological and genetic manipulations of VCP and its myriad cofactors, she has characterized VCP as an important regulator of tau aggregation. As a postdoc, Dr.…