Dr. Chakhoyan is the Assistant Professor of Research in the department of Physiology and Neuroscience at the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute in the Keck School of Medicine at USC. His day-to-day activity includes research design, implementation of innovative methods for human and mouse brain MRI/PET image acquisition, post-processing, analyze and result interpretation. His current research direction and scope of work in Project 1 within the Program Project “Vascular Contribution to Dementia and Genetic Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease (NIH/NIA:1P01AG052350-05)” and the associated sister grant “Vascular Contribution to Dementia and Amyloid and Tau Lesions in APOE4 Carriers (Alzheimer’s Association 008369-00001) led by Drs Zlokovic and Toga is to measure the poorly understood interplay between blood-brain barrier permeability (quantified by MRI), amyloid and tau accumulation (quantified by PET), vascular (small vessel disease, hypertension, diabetes, smoking) and genetic risk factors (Apolipoprotein E4) that is a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. A key technical challenge is the implementation of early MRI/PET biomarkers that can predict disease progression, which helps us to identify potential targets for intervention and improve risk prediction.