Rachita K. Sumbria

Dr. Sumbria is an Associate Professor at the Chapman University. Following obtaining her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Texas Tech School of Pharmacy in 2010, Dr. Sumbria was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the UCLA Department of Medicine and UCI Department of Neurology for four years. During this period, she worked with world-renowned experts in the areas of the blood-brain barrier and drug and protein delivery to the brain for the treatment of CNS disorders. In 2014, she joined KGI School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences as an Assistant Professor of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, where she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. She also holds an Associate Project Scientist appointment with the UCI Department of Neurology. Her research program has been funded by numerous grants from various foundations and federal agencies, such as the Alzheimer’s Association and the National Institutes of Health. The current research projects in her lab focus on the following areas: 1) development of a brain-penetrating biologic TNF-α inhibitor for Alzheimer’s disease, 2) studying the role of brain endothelial erythrophagocytosis as a mechanism of non-hemorrhagic cerebral microhemorrhage development, 3) reengineering erythropoietin for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, and most recently, 4) studying the role of alcoholic-liver induced inflammation on Alzheimer’s disease pathology.