By Christina Crowe
The Department of Biomedical Engineering recently announced the addition of Krishna Bhat, M.D., Ph.D., as professor, effective March 1, 2024.
Bhat comes to UAB from the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, where he worked as professor and holder of the Mary and Harry Goldsmith Endowed Chair in Alzheimer’s Research in the Departments of Molecular Medicine and Neurology.
Originally from a small town in South India, Bhat was educated in India, Canada, Japan, the U.S., and Italy, obtaining a BSc, MSc, Ph.D. and an M.D. He is trained in molecular biology, genetics, developmental neuroscience, medicine and neurology. Bhat conducted post-doctoral work in neurobiology at Princeton University in the lab of Paul Schedl, Ph.D., who has made significant contributions to the field of the control of gene expression in developmental systems using the model system Drosophila melanogaster, also known as the common fruit fly. While at Princeton, Bhat established a research program of his own on molecular genetics of nervous system development in Drosophila and conducted large-scale genetic screens to isolate mutations.
Bhat worked as assistant and then associate professor at the Emory University School of Medicine Department of Cell Biology from 1997 to 2006, during which time he won the Albert E. Levy Award for Excellence in Scientific Research. Later on, he was also awarded the Shanthi V. Sitharaman Silver Pear Award for mentoring.
In 2006, he moved to the University of Texas Medical Branch, where he was promoted to full professor in the Department of Neuroscience. In 2018, Bhat joined the Department of Molecular Medicine and Department of Neurology at the University of South Florida.
Bhat’s research projects in brain development, function, and disease are internationally recognized and supported by multiple R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health. His research group publishes papers in prestigious journals such as Cell, Science Signaling, Development, Genetics, EMBO J, and PLoS Genetics. He serves on the board of several national and international academic, funding and journal panels. Bhat works on the subcommittee on Elder Affairs, for the State of Florida’s Department of Health, and as an external advisor to Department of Biomedical Sciences in Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine.
Bhat is a molecular geneticist whose research team is working to decipher the genetic pathways that regulate the formation of the brain with a large number of neurons from only a few founding stem cells, and how neurons send their branches and connect with each other to transmit electricity that ultimately elicits a thought or a feeling. Given the importance of these processes to neural diseases, his lab also works on such neurodegenerative diseases as the Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease and Frontotemporal dementia. He uses the powerful genetic system Drosophila, which was instrumental in establishing the foundation of modern biological sciences. Over the years, his group has made seminal contributions to neurobiology, including identifying the Frizzled group of proteins as the elusive receptors for Wg/Wnt group of proteins. His work provided foundational basis on how multiple segmentation genes interact and determine different identities for different neuronal stem cells and demonstrate that progeny neuronal fates are already determined in the parent cell itself by polarization through asymmetric localization of proteins in the parent. In the last several years, his lab has been working on several neurodegenerative diseases such as the Alzheimer’s, ALS-FTD, Huntington’s and Fredrich’s Ataxia. This work has also led to the identification of blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease.
Bhat’s lab is also involved in collaborative projects with several groups around the country, including cardiac function and cardiomyopathies (Emory University), transgenerational effects on the brain (LSU), DNA damage and repair to neurodevelopment and disease (Texas A&M), and viral proteins in the brain (NINDS/NIH).
He is the chief academic advisor to MedComm, headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, which helps establish medical schools and branch campuses primarily in the Indo-Pacific region. He has a biotech startup company called Curegenex with the goal to bring his bench work to the bedside via developing blood-based tests for Alzheimer’s and treatment options for some of the neurodegenerative diseases.
Joining Bhat at UAB are several members of his research team, including Shreekant Verma, Ph.D., Aswan Nalli, Ph.D., Chandan Maurya, Ph.D., and Mr. Goutham Kommini.