Emma Spooner, B.S.
Clinical Research Coordinator, Mass General Hospital
Emma graduated from Endicott College with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Biology. Her research experience began during her freshman year of college, studying the olfactory system as a predictor of brain health and Alzheimer’s disease. She then worked as a research trainee at McLean Hospital in the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program, studying the impact of extreme chronic stress and child maltreatment on brain morphology. Finally, she spent her senior year working as a research trainee at Brigham and Women’s Hospital studying Alzheimer’s disease and the immune system in transgenic mouse models. Within the lab at BWH, Emma completed her senior thesis project, characterizing an APP transgenic mouse model for sex differences in Alzheimer’s pathology and complement system expression. This last experience, studying the role of the immune system in Alzheimer’s disease, is making her a great fit for our Healthy Aging Translational CoHort (HATCH) study. This project aims to validate and enhance a clinical risk algorithm for early detection of Alzheimer’s Disease and memory circuitry deficits in individuals at high risk for cognitive decline later in life
In her free time, Emma enjoys creating art, cooking, and spending time with her friends and family.
About the HATCH Study : For early prevention, it is critical to develop sex-dependent risk assessments to identify in earlier midlife those at highest risk for AD later in life, prior to disease manifestation. We are leveraging the MassGeneral Biobank to create a Healthy Aging Translational CoHort (HATCH), composed of individuals between ages 50 – 70 years who are high- and low-risk for AD. High-risk is defined as genetic risk and/or clinical risk (i.e., having a diagnosis of either major depression, hypertension, and/or diabetes, known major risk factors for AD). Low-risk individuals do not have any of these. We are characterizing high- and low-risk individuals extensively assessing genetic, immune, hormonal, neurovascular, metabolic, and clinical functions.
Using HATCH, we aim to develop a clinical risk algorithm that will identify in early midlife those who are at highest risk for cognitive decline and AD later in life.