I joined the Karandikar lab in February 2020.  I am excited to bring my prior training in cell and regenerative biology and apply my skills to and learn from this new area of research. The Karandikar lab focuses on understanding the complex immune regulatory mechanisms underlying the autoimmune demyelinating disease, multiple sclerosis (MS). This is a chronic neurological inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) characterized by multifocal areas of demyelination, axonal damage and immune cell infiltration mediated by CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T-lymphocytes. It is essential to investigate the interplay between CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T-lymphocytes during different stages of MS and in its animal model such as an Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE). My interests involve elucidating the crucial interactions between CD4⁺ and CD⁸+ T- lymphocytes during autoimmunity. We plan to use advances in cell, molecular biology, immunofluorescence methods and genome editing tools such as CRISPR-Cas9 mediated gene editing to unravel these complicated T-cell interactions under MS condition. We believe that our continued research in this area could be useful to gain insights and aid the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies for MS patients.