iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

So fortunate to have my mom stay with me and give me cut-up fruit as I wrap up my last week of prep for my Step 2 medical licensing exam! 😭♥️ Truly cannot wait to be done…

Little bowl of cut-up apples on a notebook full of notes from reviewing tests, surrounded by a computer keyboard, two pens, and several incomplete to-do lists.

000

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

As a testament to her always showing up, here’s a photo of Ms. Edith and Mr. Dennis at my dissertation defense showing up for me! ☺️♥️

Picture of three people dressed formally, grinning away. From the left to the right, you can see Mr. Dennis in a checked shirt and black jacket with cream khakis, Sud in an all Blue suit and shirt, and Ms. Edith in a brown top and tan pants holding a cane.

020

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Specifically, what we found suggested that the higher SDoH burden was associated with poorer cerebrovascular health and brain structure among Black participants in the study. 🧠‼️ (4/x)

This image is a visual or graphical abstract of the study titled 'Associations of place-based social determinants of health with biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias'. The image describes this to be a retrospective cohort study in the Wake Forest Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, including 679 participants from the Healthy Brain Study, running from 2016 to 2024. The primary outcomes of the study included neuroimaging and plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer's Disease and related Dementias. Findings in the study highlighted that the burden of place-based social determinants of health (SDoH) was higher among Black participants. Additionally, among Black participants, higher levels of neighborhood disadvantage, social vulnerability, and environmental injustice is related to worse biomarker outcomes. The discussion of the study highlighted that this higher SDoH burden was associated with changes in dementia-related neuroimaging biomarkers, particularly related to cerebrovascular health and brain structure, among Black participants. It is important to invest in grassroots initiatives and policy efforts to combat SDoH at a neighborhood-level in an effort to improve ADRD outcomes.

130

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

This study was conducted within the Wake Forest Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and included 679 older adults across the cognitive spectrum! 🧓🏼👵🏼🧓🏾👵🏾 The primary research question in the study was to examine the relationships of place-based SDoH with biomarkers of dementia.❓ (2/x)

120

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

All of this will also eventually culminate in my life’s work to intervene on those social and structural determinants to improve health for all! (3/3)

Sud with his family — Sud’s dad is on his left, with Sud’s uncle to the extreme left. Sud’s aunt is on his right, with Sud’s uncle to her right. Sud’s partner, Bailey, is on the extreme right — far-left of the image.

Sud at one of their favorite breweries, Lesser-Known Beer Company, in front of barrels where beers are being aged, wearing a sash that reads “Ph.inisheD” and a decorative gold “PHD” sign hanging above!

140

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

I’m excited to see the work from my dissertation get out there over the coming months, and to further build upon this work to illustrate the influence of the social and structural determinants of health on dementia. (2/3)

A picture of cinnabon delights bought for Sud by their partner, Bailey, with little celebratory PhD signs on toothpicks sticking out from it!

Sud along with their dissertation committee members, who could make it in person to the defense. Two of Sud’s committee members could only join virtually — Dr. Sarah Forrester and Dr. Chris Whitlow.

140

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

Not a typical post (🧵) on here, but just over 6 months ago, I successfully defended my dissertation alongside friends, family, my committee, and many loved ones. It was a wonderful day, and I have so many people to thank for their support over the past 3 years and more! (1/3)

Front page of Sud’s dissertation titled ‘Investigating the Relationships of Place-based Social Determinants of Health and Structural Racism with Measures of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias”.

The rest of the text on the title page reads as follows:
BY
SUDARSHAN KRISHNAMURTHY
A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Molecular Medicine and Translational Science
May 2025
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Approved By:
Timothy M. Hughes, PhD, MPH, Advisor
James R. Bateman, MD, MPH, Chair
Sarah N. Forrester, PhD, MS
Da Ma, PhD
Ellen Quillen, PhD
Christopher Whitlow, MD, PhD

Sud standing in a dark blue suit and blue shirt grinning as he wears a sash that reads “Ph.inisheD”.

192

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

I truly cannot thank this entire team enough for their help in getting this out! (@dusetzinas.bsky.social) And a special thanks to my mentor, sponsor, and friend in this work, @uressien.bsky.social, for giving me the opportunity to lead this project after we first discussed it back in 2022! (6/x)

This image is a visual abstract for a paper titled ‘Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Receipt of ERBB2-Targeted Therapy for Breast Cancer, 2010-2020”. This was a Retrospective Cohort study using a SEER-Medicare Linked Dataset. The sample comprised 12,765 beneficiaries with ERBB2-positive breast cancer, and included those diagnosed from January 2010 to December 2020. The primary outcome of the study was receipt of ERBB2-targeted therapy in 12 months after diagnosis. The primary findings showed a) an increase in overall receipt of ERBB2-targeted therapies from 41.3% to 64.3% over time, and that b) Black & Hispanic patients had a lower likelihood of receipt than White patients in 2010-11, with no differences by 2018-19. The findings suggest a narrowing of racial and ethnic disparities in receipt of therapies over time among older Medicare beneficiaries with ERBB2-positive breast cancer. Future work is needed to understand the practices that resulted in the narrowing of disparities to develop implementation strategies and improve pharmacoequity in breast cancer care.

220

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Our main finding was a narrowing of racial and ethnic disparities from 2010 to 2019! 📉 In other words, although Black and Hispanic beneficiaries had lower rates of receipt of ERBB2/HER2-targeted therapies than white beneficiaries in 2010, this disparity was no longer seen in 2019. (4/x)

This figure, from the study being discussed, has a line graph of the percentages of beneficiaries receiving treatment by race and ethnicity between 2010 and 2019 in panel A. Below that, in panel B, is a forest plot of the likelihood of treatment by race and ethnicity from 2010 to 2019 from up to down. Both figure panels show a narrowing of disparities, with Black and Hispanic beneficiaries starting off at lower rates of receipt of ERBB2/HER2-targeted therapies in 2010-11, and these disparities not being observed in 2018-19.

100

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

To help answer this question, we designed a retrospective cohort study using the SEER–Medicare linked dataset, where the primary outcome was receipt of ERBB2/HER2-targeted therapies in the 12 months after diagnosis, by race and ethnicity. So, what did we find? ⁉️ (3/x)

100

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Sharing a short thread here on our recent publication from earlier this month. This project was an incredible team effort, and truly would not have been possible without every co-author on this all-⭐ team! Go give it a read here if interested: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... A short 🧵: (1/x)

163

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

📋‼️Honored to share this newly published article that I helped lead! Cannot thank @uressien.bsky.social enough - he has served as a friend, mentor, and sponsor throughout! And the whole study team who this wouldn’t have happened without!🙏🏽 Will post a longer thread on the findings soon - stay tuned!

172

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

We’re finally there, y’all! I’ll be defending my final PhD dissertation next Friday, March 28th! Excited to see you on the other side of it!

191

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

What does this all mean? It affirms that where you live, the resources and opportunities available to you as a result, impacts your risk for dementia. It highlights the importance of grassroots initiatives and policy efforts to tackle SDoH - it brings this image to mind! (7/x)

102

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Among cognitive measures, we saw strong relationships between ADI and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the preclinical Alzheimer’s cognitive composite (PACC), and the mini-mental – similarly driven by the cognitively unimpaired participants 📉. (5/x)

100

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Across cardiometabolic measures, we saw in bivariate analyses that ADI predicted systolic BP, HbA1c, and a composite cardiometabolic health index – and this was largely driven by our cognitively unimpaired participants 📈. (4/x)

100

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

We set out to look for how place-based SDoH affected cardiometabolic and cognitive measures associated with ADRD within the Wake Forest Alzheimer's Disease Research Center clinical core cohort, and used the Area Deprivation Index (ADI) as our predictor. (3/x)

100

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

About time for a reintroduction on here! 😊 I'm Sud, a 5th-year MD/PhD student @wakeforest.bsky.social and a tenant organizer in Winston-Salem, NC! My dissertation work looks at the impact of social determinants of health (SDoH) and structural racism on Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Sud in a checked blue shirt, smiling wide, against the backdrop of glass windows. Sud has short hair, a short stubble, and two black studs in both earlobes.

2191

Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, PhD @sudkrishnamurthy.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Coffee and latte art (on a budget)! I could talk about it forever haha This is a cortado I made when I was making espresso-based drinks more regularly!

A cortado in a short glass, with a tulip for latte art on top made with oat milk!

2140