Rahul Desikan’s Story of Love, Science, and Facing Down Death

This pioneering neuroscientist was attacking ALS. Then ALS attacked him.

November 8, 2018
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Sunlight streams through the windows of Rahul Desikan’s living room. Atop a bookshelf is a photo of a strapping six-foot-one Rahul hiking with his wife, Maya Vijayaraghavan (MED’06), in Alaska’s snow-capped mountains. Another photo shows Desikan beaming, his four-year-old son—the older of his two children—on his shoulders.

In addition to being a clinician and assistant professor of neuroradiology at the University of California, San Francisco, Desikan (CAS’99, MED’09) is a pioneering neuroscientist with collaborators all over the world. He and his team are combining imaging, biostatistics, and mountains of genetic and health data in their quest to understand the causes behind the most devastating degenerative brain diseases known to mankind, from Alzheimer’s to ALS to frontotemporal dementia.

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  • Sara Rimer

    Senior Contributing Editor

    Sara Rimer

    Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald, Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times, where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

    She can be reached at srimer@bu.edu.

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There is 1 comment on Rahul Desikan’s Story of Love, Science, and Facing Down Death

  1. I stopped most of my ALS medications due to severe side effects and I started on ALS herbal treatments from Natural Herbs Center (Visit naturalherbscentre. com), the treatment has made a very huge difference for me. My symptoms including weakness, difficulty swallowing and slurred speech disappeared after few months on the treatment. I am getting active again since starting this treatment.

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