Project Grant K99AG097980

The National Institute on Aging awarded $133,110 to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai on September 5, 2026, under the Aging Research program (CFDA 93.866) for project K99AG097980.

The recipient will integrate single-nucleus and spatial transcriptomics with machine-learning models to establish a comprehensive lifespan reference of the healthy human prefrontal cortex and identify Alzheimer's disease-specific deviations. During the K99 mentored phase, the work will harmonize single-nucleus RNA-sequencing data from the PsychAD Consortium and public resources spanning the first trimester through over 100 years to reconstruct cross-lineage pseudotime trajectories and pseudotime-aware intercellular communication networks. The recipient will also integrate publicly available 10X Visium datasets to define age-related spatial remodeling of cell types, gene-expression gradients, and neighborhood interactions. In the R00 independent phase, the recipient will generate new high-resolution Xenium 5K datasets spanning prenatal through aging stages to complete a lifespan-resolved spatial atlas, extend analyses to Alzheimer's disease by mapping disease-related divergence from healthy trajectories, and validate disrupted cellular niches and signaling networks. The mentored work occurs under the guidance of Panos Roussos, Guo-Cheng Yuan, and Alison Goate.

Performance occurs in New York, NY 10029. The period of performance runs through August 31, 2028.