Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Joint Department of Medicine, University of Washington
Project Title: Maternal Immune Activation Remodeling of Offspring Glycosaminoglycan Sulfation Patterns During Neurodevelopment
Award Year: 2023
Biography
Dr. Kimberly Alonge is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Washington and Program Director for Matrix Biology at the UW Medicine Diabetes Institute. Her research program focuses on understanding the functional significance of brain extracellular matrix reorganization in regulating neurocircuit activity in neurodevelopment, healthy aging, and diseased states. Dr. Alonge's studies utilize liquid and imaging mass spectrometry methodologies capable of spatially characterizing changes in sulfated glycosaminoglycan patterning, with an emphasis on rodent to primate species translatability. Her current research program supported by a NIH-NIAID DP2 specifically investigates the relationship between material immune activation and offspring neurocircuit rewiring driven by changes in fetal brain glycan recoding, an effect highly influenced by both the maternal and fetal immune cell regulators.