Medical Student/Junior Research Specialist/Spine Research Fellow
University of California, Irvine - Department of Neurological Surgery, US
Nischal Acharya is a current medical student at the UC Irvine who completed a Bachelors in Science degree in Neuroscience at Brown University in 2017 with honors. Following graduation, he completed an internship at NASA conducting research in synthetic biology for synthetic batteries. He then identified a new interface for the treatment of MTAP-null glioblastomas at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Following this work, he expanded on his understanding of clinical drug development through research on aducanumab in Alzheimer’s Disease at Stanford University. His current research interests lie at the intersection of technology (AI) and simulation devices. He conducted a summer internship at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he learned how to correlate imaging to genomics of brain tumors. As a medical student he has obtained two patents: one for the development of a neurosurgical simulation device and one for a novel esophageal stent. In addition, he has obtained two reserach grants for randomized clinical trials in spine surgery that he originated, designed, and recieved institutional IRB approval for. He aspires to be a neurosurgeon-scientist.