Vikram Khurana, M.D., Ph.D.

Vik Khurana M.D. Ph.D. is the inaugural incumbent of the Tracy T. Batchelor Endowed Chair in Neurology at MassGeneral Brigham, Chief of the Movement Disorders Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He holds faculty appointments at the Ann Romney Center of Neurologic Diseases, Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is a faculty mentor in the Harvard Neuroscience and Biological and Biomedical Science Ph.D. programs. Dr Khurana obtained his medical degree from the University of Sydney, Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard University, neurology training at MassGeneral Brigham and postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute. 

At MassGeneral Brigham, Dr Khurana leads i) the Harvard Biomarkers Study (HBS 2.0), one of the most extensive longitudinal biomarker and natural history studies of neurodegenerative disease patients worldwide; ii) the precision medicine (MyTrial) program; iii) the American Parkinson's Disease Association (APDA) Center for Advanced Research; iv) the Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) Center of Excellence. He is a member of the scientific advisory boards of the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), APDA and Mission MSA and has co-founded two biotech companies focused on developing neurodegenerative disease therapies.

The Khurana Lab has pioneered "systems cell biology" - the combination of stem-cell biology, genomics and high-throughput cellular analyses - to understand the diverse presentations and outcomes of neurodegenerative diseases (“patient heterogeneity”), and to ultimately develop precision medicines. The lab focuses on "synucleinopathies": degenerative movement disorders related to aggregation of the alpha-synuclein (aSyn) protein in the brain (Parkinson's disease (PD), Lewy body dementia, MSA). The lab has identified i) aSyn signature pathologies in patient stem cells (Science 2013); ii) connections between genetic and environmental risk factors and aSyn aggregation (Cell Systems/Cell 2017, Nature Comm 2023); iii) new classes of small-molecule and genetic medicines (Nedd4 activators: Science 2013; SCD inhibitors: Cell Reports 2018; ATN1 ASOs); iv) a role for aSyn in regulating gene expression (Cell 2022); iv) methods that enable rapid development of aSyn pathologies in patient stem cells (Neuron 2024). These approaches are now being applied to other neurodegenerative disorders. 

Khurana is a past Fulbright Scholar, NYSCF Robertson Stem Cell Investigator, ANA Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar, APDA Cotzias Fellow and Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP) investigator.

Selected publications

Chung CY*, Khurana V*, Auluck PK, Tardiff DF, Mazzulli JR, Soldner F, Baru V, Lou Y, Freyzon Y, Cho S, Mungenast A, Muffat J, Mitalipova M, Pluth MD, Jui NT, Schüle B, Lippard SJ, Tsai LH, Krainc D, Buchwald, SL, Jaenisch R, Lindquist S. Identification and rescue of α-synuclein toxicity in Parkinson patient-derived neurons. Science 2013 342 (6161): 983-87. *Equal contribution

Khurana V*o, Peng J*, Chung CY*, Auluck PK, Tardiff DF, Fanning S, Bartels T, Koeva M,Benyamini H, Lou Y, Nutter-Upham A, Tuncbag N, Baru V, Freyzon Y, Costanzo M, SanLuis B, Schöndorf DC, Barrasa MI, Caraveo G, Ehsani S, Sanjana N, Zhong Q, Gasser T, Vidal M, Deleidi M, Boone C, Berger B, Fraenkel E, Lindquist S. Genome-scale molecular networks link diverse neurodegenerative disease genes and processes to alpha-synuclein. Cell Systems 2017 4(2):157-170 *Equal contribution ^oCorresponding author

Chung CY*^o, Khurana V*o, Loh K, Yi S, Sahni N, Hill D, Peng J, Vidal M, Ting A, Lindquist S*. In situproteome approaches connect alpha-synuclein directly to endocytic trafficking and mRNA metabolism. Cell Systems 2017 4(2):242-250 *Equal contribution ^oCorresponding author

Hallacli E, Kayatekin C, Nazeen S , Wang X, Sheinkopf Z, Sathyakumar S, Sarkar S, Jiang X, Dong X, Di Maio R, Wang W, Keeney MT, Daniel Felsky, Sandoe J, Vahdatshoar A, Mani DR, Udeshi ND, Carr SA, de Jager P, Myers CL, Greenmyre TJ, Lindquist S, Bartel DP, Sunyaev S, Feany MB, Chung CY and Khurana Vo. The Parkinson’s disease protein alpha-synuclein is a modulator of Processing-bodies and mRNA stability. Cell 2022 185(12):2035-2056.e33. ^oCorresponding author

Paul KC*,Krolewski RC*, Lucumi Moreno E, Blank J, Holton K, Ahfeldt T, Furlong M, Yu Y, Cockburn M, Thompson LK, Bronstein J, Rubin L^o, Khurana V^o, and Ritz B^o. Coupling comprehensive pesticide-wide association study to iPSC dopaminergic screening identifies and classifies Parkinson-relevant pesticides.  Nature Communications 2023 14(1): 2803. *Equal contribution ^oCorresponding author

Lam I*, Ndayisaba A*,  Lewis AJ, Fu YH, Zaccagnini L, Sandoe J, Sanz R, Vahdatshoar A, Martin TD, Nader M, Ichihashi T, Tripathi A, Ramalingam N, Oettgen C, Bartels T, Schäbinger M, Jiang X, Verma A,  Yu X, Hyles K, Park C, Theunissen TW, Wang H,  Jaenisch R, Stevens B, Stefanova N, Wenning G, Luk KC, Pernaute RS, Gómez-Esteban JC, Felsky D, Kiyota Y, Sahni N, Yi S, Chung CY,  Stahlberg H, Abizanda IF,  Schöneberg J, Elledge SJ, Dettmer U, Halliday GM, Bartels T, and Khurana V^o. Rapid iPSC inclusionopathy models shed light on formation, consequence and molecular subtype of proteinaceous a-synuclein inclusions. Neuron 2024 112(17):2886-2909  ^oCorresponding author