Celeste Karch, PhD

Associate Director and Scientific Director
Professor, Department of Psychiatry
425 S. Euclid Ave, Campus Box 8134
St Louis, MO 63110

Dr. Karch is a Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine. The goal of the Karch lab is to understand the molecular drivers of Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, and other neurodegenerative disease. To do this, the Karch lab uses functional genomics alongside stem cell and mouse models. The Karch lab has developed a somatic and stem cell collection containing deeply clinically characterized cell lines from individuals carrying genetic drivers of Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. These cells are used to develop novel tools to interrogate mechanisms of neurodegenerative disease. Additionally, the Karch lab couples high-throughput transcriptomics and proteomics in stem cells and human brain tissues to identify disease signatures and to understand protein kinetics in disease. Dr. Karch is the Knight ADRC Biomarker Core leader and the Associate and Scientific Director of the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN). In 2021, she was awarded the Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early Career Scientist.