Supriya Chakraborty might have been studying insects in a lab had it not been for an immunology college instructor in India who taught him about the superheroes inside him—immune cells that wage a battle against bacteria, parasites, and a host of other adversaries that invade our bodies. “That really fascinated me,” Chakraborty recalled. “My focus shifted from entomology to wanting to solve illnesses that affect humans, specifically neurodegenerative disorders.”
Zeynab Tabrizi would take quite a different path to studying conditions that damage and destroy parts of the human nervous system. She had long been a student of immunology and neuroscience in her native Iran, conducting research that explored the causes of disorders like schizophrenia and autism. “I had some experience working in industry,” she said, “but my heart was in academia.”
Now, their paths have intersected at the University of Miami. As Ph.D. students in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology, Chakraborty and Tabrizi conduct research that could help blaze a trail to more effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps even leading to a cure for the memory-robbing disorder that affects more than 7 million older adults in the U.S.
