Anna Aristarkhova

MD/PhD Student

Anna Aristarkhova graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2020 with a bachelor’s in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. During her undergraduate years, she completed her thesis in Dr. Rolf Karlstrom’s lab, studying the role of the Hh-signaling pathway in regulating neurogenesis and cell cycle progression in the larval zebrafish hypothalamus. She then went on to work as a research technician in the lab of Dr. Denise Faustman at Massachusetts General Hospital. She studied the effects of the BCG vaccine on the immune system, specifically in the context of Type 1 diabetes. In 2022, she began her MD/PhD at UMass Chan Medical School and joined the Schafer lab in 2024. She is interested in understanding the interaction of microglia and the complement system in synapse elimination.