Emily Drzymalla is an epidemiology graduate student and has been awarded a National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (F31) from the National Institute of Aging (NIA), for her project titled “Metabolomic correlates of improved Alzheimer’s disease polygenic risk score for different populations”.
Emily Drzymalla is a fourth year epidemiology PhD student co-mentored by Dr. Christy Avery and Dr. Laura Raffield. Her research for the F31 centers around Alzheimer’s disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disease without completely understood mechanisms that is projected to increase in prevalence as the population continues to age. Using genetic and metabolomic data, which may provide insight into these mechanisms as well as predict disease development, this research aims to evaluate multiple methods for polygenic risk score construction for Alzheimer’s disease in different populations and use the best performing polygenic risk score to understand metabolomic changes in midlife in relation to Alzheimer’s disease genetic risk. These findings will offer an Alzheimer’s disease polygenic risk score for populations in Alzheimer’s disease genetic research and insights into mechanisms in early Alzheimer’s disease development through metabolomics.