Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Anina Lund is a Danish-Ecuadorian American Neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where her research takes a multimodal approach to understanding the structural organization of
the human brain. Her doctoral work has focused on identifying and replicating cell-type-specific gene expression signatures that link brain morphology to cellular senescence, with particular attention to patterns that emerge during both early neurodevelopment and aging.
In addition, Anina’s thesis work has investigated how evolving human genome and transcriptome references affect the reproducibility ofAlzheimer’s disease gene expression signatures. Her work demonstrates that, although quantification may vary across reference versions, broader disease-associated transcriptional patterns remain largely consistent, while some gene-level associations show meaningful variation.
Anina earned her B.A. in Cognitive Science, with a minor in Music, from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2020. As an undergraduate, she contributed to various research projects spanning developmental psychology, behavioral neuroscience, and molecular biology. Her work included studies on ADHD symptomatology in adult women, early childhood social cognition, aging-related proteostasis in C. elegans, and mitochondrial dysfunction in mouse models of neurodegeneration.
Prior to her scientific career, Anina was a competitive distance freestyle swimmer. She trained with the Badger Swim Club in New York, where she was a three-time Scholastic All-American and qualified for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 400m and 800m freestyle events. She competed collegiately as a member of the California Golden Bears swim team, earning CSCAA Honorable Mention All-American Scholar recognition, and internationally for Denmark at the 2017 FINA World Championships in Budapest, where she anchored the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
In her future work, Anina is particularly interested in understanding the progression of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases across the lifespan with the goal of developing translational frameworks that can inform early diagnosis and personalized treatment of brain disorders. Her broader goal is to bridge the gap between biological mechanisms and clinical outcomes through interdisciplinary, data-driven science.
Anina Lund is a Danish-Ecuadorian American Neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where her research takes a multimodal approach to understanding the structural organization of
the human brain. Her doctoral work has focused on identifying and replicating cell-type-specific gene expression signatures that link brain morphology to cellular senescence, with particular attention to patterns that emerge during both early neurodevelopment and aging.
In addition, Anina’s thesis work has investigated how evolving human genome and transcriptome references affect the reproducibility ofAlzheimer’s disease gene expression signatures. Her work demonstrates that, although quantification may vary across reference versions, broader disease-associated transcriptional patterns remain largely consistent, while some gene-level associations show meaningful variation.
Anina earned her B.A. in Cognitive Science, with a minor in Music, from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2020. As an undergraduate, she contributed to various research projects spanning developmental psychology, behavioral neuroscience, and molecular biology. Her work included studies on ADHD symptomatology in adult women, early childhood social cognition, aging-related proteostasis in C. elegans, and mitochondrial dysfunction in mouse models of neurodegeneration.
Prior to her scientific career, Anina was a competitive distance freestyle swimmer. She trained with the Badger Swim Club in New York, where she was a three-time Scholastic All-American and qualified for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 400m and 800m freestyle events. She competed collegiately as a member of the California Golden Bears swim team, earning CSCAA Honorable Mention All-American Scholar recognition, and internationally for Denmark at the 2017 FINA World Championships in Budapest, where she anchored the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
In her future work, Anina is particularly interested in understanding the progression of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases across the lifespan with the goal of developing translational frameworks that can inform early diagnosis and personalized treatment of brain disorders. Her broader goal is to bridge the gap between biological mechanisms and clinical outcomes through interdisciplinary, data-driven science.
