Dr. Kunal Samantaray is a postdoctoral fellow in the Jadiya Lab at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. His current research focuses on two complementary projects aimed at understanding how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease (AD).
In one project, Dr. Samantaray investigates calcium homeostasis in AD, examining how post-translational modifications of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) alter calcium transport and link metabolic changes to mitochondrial dysfunction. His second project centers on TRIM25, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, and its role in regulating mitochondrial proteostasis, neuroinflammation, and protein homeostasis in AD.
Education
- Fellowship, Department of Physics, University of Montreal, Canada, 2021 – 2024
- Research Scientist, FemtoFarad Pvt. Ltd, India, 2020 – 2021
- CSIR-NET Research Fellow, School of Biotechnology, KIIT University, India, 2015 – 2020
Scientific Memberships
- 2024-present Member, Alzheimer's Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer's Research and Treatment
- 2024-present Member, American Heart Association (AHA), USA
- 2023-present Member, Canadian Society of Microbiologists
- 2024-present Member, Biophysical Society of Canada
Awards and Grants
- 2025 Best Poster Presentation Award (2nd Place) in Basic Science category at the 19th Annual Internal Medicine Research Symposium, Wake Forest University School of Medicine
- 2025 Center for Redox Biology and Medicine (CRBM) Travel Award, Wake Forest University, NC, USA
- 2023 Best Poster Award for 'The role of cell-wall cleaving endopeptidases for the regulation of cell-envelope growth in Gram-negative bacteria', Annual 72nd Conference of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists (Halifax), Canada
- 2020 Grant: Principal Investigator, BIRAC Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIRAC/CCAMP01360/BIG-17/20), India - INR 5 million
- 2019 DST-JSPS Japan-India Cooperative Science Programme (IJCSP) fellowship (DST/INT/JSPS/P-272/2018) with Nagoya City University, Japan
- 2017 Best Oral presentation award on topic 'Self-assembly of living cells by manipulating electrical properties: Towards a development of new biomaterials for bio-sensing application' at International Conference on Advances in Biotechnology and Biotherapeutics (Chennai), India
- 2016 3rd Prize BIRAC Hackathon (Dept. of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, IKP Eden, Bangalore), India