Mustafa Noor Farooqui

I am a 9th grade student researcher focusing on the earliest trigger point of Alzheimer’s disease. My work focuses on how the APOE4 allele disrupts mitochondrial health, leading to insulin resistance, neuroinflammation, and toxic stress signals that accelerate cognitive decline.

A key focus is my cardiolipin project, where I investigate whether APOE4 depletes mitochondrial cardiolipin a phospholipid essential for electron transport chain stability thereby impairing energy metabolism and triggering redox imbalance. This hypothesis aims to clarify whether cardiolipin loss is an early upstream event in neurodegeneration.

In parallel, I am building NeuroShield, a computational and translational project combining protein docking, CRISPR rescue of APOE4 (R112C mutation), and therapeutic inhibitor design. Together, these projects explore both mechanistic roots and intervention pathways for Alzheimer’s. 

My long-term goal is to contribute to next-generation therapies that target the root mitochondrial and metabolic failures of AD, rather than its late-stage symptoms.

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