College of Medicine
UNMC_Acronym_Vert_sm_4c
University of Nebraska Medical Center

Pravin Yeapuri, PhD

Pravin Yeapuri, PhD

Research Interests

My research focuses on engineering disease-specific CAR regulatory T cell (CAR-Treg) therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, with a primary emphasis on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. This includes developing novel antibodies using molecular modeling and hybridoma technology to engineer precision CAR-Tregs targeting pathological protein aggregates in the brain. Ongoing projects also include developing these novel antibodies as standalone therapies or as components of humoral and cellular combinatorial therapies.

Additionally, to address translational challenges in expanding these rare Treg populations for human cell therapy, my research is also focused on developing fucosylation-based strategies in collaboration with TargaZyme to enhance trafficking and function of ex-vivo expanded and CAR-engineered Tregs.

In parallel, our lab is developing clinically relevant knock-in (KI) mouse models to enable translational research in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) immunotherapies. We have created CRISPR-based humanized KI AD models on an immunocompromised NOG background to enable, for the first time, studies of human immune responses in AD. Ongoing efforts include accelerating pathology in these models by knocking in additional AD mutations and using these models to evaluate HIV’s role in AD and testing human CAR-Treg therapies in vivo.

 

  1. Amyloid-β specific regulatory T cells attenuate Alzheimer's disease pathobiology in APP/PS1 mice. Yeapuri P, Machhi J, Lu Y, Abdelmoaty MM, Kadry R, Patel M, Bhattarai S, Namminga KL, Olson KE, Foster EG, Mosley RL, Gendelman HE. Mol Neurodegener. 2023 Dec 18;18(1):97. doi: 10.1186/s13024-023-00692-7. PMID: 38111016; PMCID: PMC10729469.

 

  1. Amyloid precursor protein and presenilin-1 knock-in immunodeficient mice exhibit intraneuronal Aβ pathology, microgliosis, and extensive neuronal loss. Yeapuri P, Machhi J, Foster EG, Kadry R, Bhattarai S, Lu Y, Sil S, Sapkota R, Srivastava S, Kumar M, Ikezu T, Poluektova LY, Gendelman HE, Mosley RL. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Apr;21(4):e70084. doi: 10.1002/alz.70084. PMID: 40195277; PMCID: PMC11975631.

 

  1. CD4+ effector T cells accelerate Alzheimer's disease in mice. Machhi J, Yeapuri P, Lu Y, Foster E, Chikhale R, Herskovitz J, Namminga KL, Olson KE, Abdelmoaty MM, Gao J, Quadros RM, Kiyota T, Jingjing L, Kevadiya BD, Wang X, Liu Y, Poluektova LY, Gurumurthy CB, Mosley RL, Gendelman HE. J Neuroinflammation. 2021 Nov 19;18(1):272. doi: 10.1186/s12974-021-02308-7. PMID: 34798897; PMCID:PMC8603581.

 

  1. Immune senescence in aged APP/PS1 mice. Abdelmoaty MM, Yeapuri P, Machhi J, Lu Y, Namminga KL, Kadry R, Lu E, Bhattarai S, Mosley RL, Gendelman HE. NeuroImmune Pharm Ther. 2023 Aug 14;2(3):317-330. doi: 10.1515/nipt-2023-0015. PMID: 38023614; PMCID: PMC10659760.

 

  1. Interleukin-2 expands neuroprotective regulatory T cells in Parkinson's disease. Markovic M, Yeapuri P, Namminga KL, Lu Y, Saleh M, Olson KE, Gendelman HE, Mosley RL. NeuroImmune Pharm Ther. 2022 Jun 21;1(1):43-50. doi:10.1515/nipt-2022-0001. PMID: 38407500; PMCID: PMC9254387.

 

  1. Development of an extended half-life GM-CSF fusion protein for Parkinson's disease. Yeapuri P, Olson KE, Lu Y, Abdelmoaty MM, Namminga KL, Markovic M, Machhi J, Mosley RL, Gendelman HE. J Control Release. 2022 Aug;348:951-965. doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2022.06.024. Epub 2022 Jun 30. PMID: 35738463; PMCID:PMC10350880.

 

  1. HIV-1 infection facilitates Alzheimer's disease pathology in humanized APP knock-in immunodeficient mice. Bhattarai S, Kadry R, Yeapuri P, Lu Y, Foster EG, Zhang C, Dash P, Poluektova LY, Gorantla S, Mosley RL, Gendelman HE. NeuroImmune Pharm Ther. 2025 Feb 10;4(1):27-38. doi: 10.1515/nipt-2024-0018. PMID: 40309515; PMCID: PMC12041850.

 

  1. Monocyte biomarkers define sargramostim treatment outcomes for Parkinson's disease. Abdelmoaty MM, Machhi J, Yeapuri P, Shahjin F, Kumar V, Olson KE, Mosley RL, Gendelman HE. Clin Transl Med. 2022 Jul;12(7):e958. doi:10.1002/ctm2.958. PMID: 35802825; PMCID: PMC9270000.
TBD

- 2022 Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska USA 

- 2012 Bachelor of Pharmacy,  Manipal University, Udupi, India

  • TBD
Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience
 
Durham Research Center 8032
985880 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE 68198-5880