Julie Saugstad's Biography

Julie Saugstad, Professor, Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University

Dr. Saugstad earned her BS in Microbiology from Oklahoma State University, her PhD in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and trained as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vollum Institute at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). She is a Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, and an affiliate faculty member in the Departments of Molecular and Medical Genetics, and Neurology at the OHSU.

Funded by the 1st NIH Extracellular RNA Communication Program, her team discovered and validated miRNA biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from living donors, then identified miRNAs that trend with progression from control to mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to AD. Current studies are establishing whether the CSF miRNAs can discriminate AD from controls in plasma, whether the trending CSF miRNAs relevant to MCI are changed in plasma, and whether the CSF miRNAs are specific for AD vs. other neurodegenerative diseases. Her team has also shown differential effect of two biological factors for AD, APOE genotype and sex, on extracellular vesicle (EV) cargo, which may influence AD pathophysiology.