20182025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Dr Thaarvena Retinasamy is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Jeffery Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in Medical Bioscience from Monash University Malaysia in 2013. She began her first stint in research when she joined the Brain Research Institute of Monash Sunway (BRIMS) in 2014. She then went on to pursue her PhD in Neuroscience in 2015 under the supervision of Dr Mohd Farooq Shaikh. During her PhD program under the Neuropharmacology Research Cluster lab, she developed her expertise in neurodegenerative diseases particularly in Alzheimer’s disease. Her PhD work was to develop various Alzheimer’s disease models that enables the different Alzheimer’s hypotheses to be tested using a Malaysian based plant extract called “Misai kucing”. She graduated in 2019 and currently works as a postdoctoral research fellow under the guidance of her former supervisor, Dr Mohd Farooq Shaikh.

Research interests

Dr Thaarvena’s research interest is motivated by the need to better comprehend the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases, specifically in exploring the gaps in the neural basis of neurocognitive disorders and cognitive aging, including changes in learning and memory. She has garnered an arsenal of skills in cognitive and behavioural techniques like stereotaxic surgery, animal model disease development, various behaviour paradigms, PCR techniques and immunohistochemistry techniques which are useful for evaluating brain-behaviour associations. In the past years, she has published several peer-reviewed journal articles and has also presented in international conferences.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Education/Academic qualification

Neuroscience, • Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

20152019

Biomedical Science, Bachelors Degree, Monash University Malaysia

20102013

Research area keywords

  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • • Neurodegenerative diseases
  • • Neuroinflammation
  • Neurodegenerative dysfunction related pharmacotherapy
  • • Natural products-based drug discovery

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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