Emmie Banks
Scientist I - Alzheimer's Disease
Emmie Banks is a Scientist I at the Allen Institute for Brain Health Accelerator, where her work centers on uncovering molecular and cellular drivers of Alzheimer’s disease. She is currently working on the Seattle Alzheimer’s Disease Cell Atlas (SEA-AD) project, contributing to the development of a high-resolution, multimodal cellular atlas of Alzheimer’s disease. Prior to joining the Allen Institute, Emmie completed her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Emory School of Medicine, where she studied the interaction between circuit hyperexcitability and tau pathology in an adult-onset, region-specific mouse model of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Her work identified a novel role for parvalbumin interneuron hypoactivity in driving early tau accumulation. She also completed an internship at Genentech, where she was mentored by Dr. David Hackos and collaborated with the Bender Lab at UCSF to distinguish the roles of Nav1.2 and Nav1.6 in neocortical pyramidal cell excitability. Her post-baccalaureate training at the Yale School of Medicine focused on establishing [11C]UCB-J PET as a biomarker of synaptic density in Alzheimer’s patients under the mentorship of Drs. Adam Mecca and Christopher van Dyck. She completed her undergraduate training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under Drs. Keely Muscatell and Kurt Gray.
