Emrin Horgusluoglu, Ph.D.

Program Director, Basic and Mechanistic Research in Complementary and Integrative Health Branch

Email: emrin.horgusluoglu@nih.gov

Emrin Horgusluoglu, Ph.D., is a program director in the Basic and Mechanistic Research Branch of the Division of Extramural Research at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Horgusluoglu is also the coordinator for NCCIH’s small business research programs. Dr. Horgusluoglu’s portfolio supports the development of whole person research involving multisystem interactions and multicomponent interventions, with an emphasis on technology, database, and computational method development, as well as the development of technologies and methods to monitor or enhance mind and body interventions through small business funding mechanisms.

Dr. Horgusluoglu currently represents NCCIH on the following working groups: Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS), Point of Care Technologies Research Network (POCTRN), Blueprint MedTech, Small Business Education and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED), and the National Science Foundation–National Institutes of Health (NSF-NIH) interagency initiative Smart and Connected Health.

Dr. Horgusluoglu has devoted much of her career to biomarker development, with an emphasis on advanced informatics strategies for integration of imaging, medical, and bioinformatics. Her research goal was to combine neuroimaging and genetic approaches with an ultimate goal of studying the roles of genetics and environmental influences in the development of neurological and neurodegenerative disorders to accelerate the process of finding cures. Dr. Horgusluoglu earned a master’s degree in genetics from Istanbul University and a doctorate in medical and molecular genetics from the Indiana University School of Medicine. She completed postdoctoral training at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In her research, she combined high-throughput omics data, including DNA genotyping data, mRNA expression, epigenomic profiles, and metabolomics, with multimodal diffusion tensor imaging results to identify candidate genes and pathways that impair connectivity and fiber integrity in Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Horgusluoglu was also an adjunct assistant professor teaching statistical methods in psychological research, psychological and developmental disorders of childhood and adolescence, and introduction to neurobiology at the Psychology Department at Brooklyn College.

Dr. Horgusluoglu has published on integrative multiomics approaches to identify candidate key metabolic pathways and regulators and potential therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease. Her articles have appeared in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Neurobiology of Aging, Nature Scientific Reports, NeuroImage: Clinical, Neuron, and Science Advances.