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#TraineeTuesday: April Pruitt

May 03, 2022
by Kayla Yup

From the Lab to the Limelight - Blog version of our #TraineeTuesday Twitter series

Today's #TraineeTuesday star is April Pruitt, a graduate student in the Hoffman and Brennand labs! Awarded a one-year predoctoral fellowship from the Autism Science Foundation, she will study estrogen exposure in early development as a potential factor in Autism Spectrum Disorder sex bias. Join us on a journey from April's past to future!

By identifying sex-based biological differences, April aims to find male factors that influence susceptibility to ASD or female factors that influence one's resilience against ASD. She will also shadow Ellen Hoffman, MD, PhD, and Abha Gupta, MD, PhD, in clinic to learn more about ASD diagnosis and treatment.

“Female autism is vastly understudied,” April said. “The primary focus of ASD research for decades has been on the male experience. The diagnostic materials were designed to recognize symptoms in males. Most cohorts of human studies consist of predominantly male subjects.”

My research integrates female aspects and aims to shed light on fundamental biological/genetic differences or similarities between the sexes.

April Pruitt

April fell in love with ASD research as an undergrad at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She spent the summer of 2017 analyzing ASD-like behaviors in an epilepsy model. In 2018, her desire to pursue translational research was ignited while doing cardiology research and shadowing at UC San Diego.

In 2019, April interned at Stanford, investigating a deletion syndrome associated with macrocephaly and ASD. She then applied to Yale for her PhD because the Yale Child Study Center seemed like “the perfect place" to pursue her interests in a "supportive, collaborative environment.”

“My research experience has been a culmination of the many paths I have traveled,” April said. “But I’m constantly being inspired by other fields and by my colleagues and classmates. Interdisciplinary and multi-modal work is a necessity for understanding the bigger picture of ASD, and I’m excited to make more connections with other researchers in other fields to add to the body of knowledge.”

Going forward, April wants to pursue more translational ASD research. To address the current absence of pharmacological therapeutics for ASD, she hopes to find biological pathways and drug targets for potential reversal of severe ASD symptoms such as aggression and sleep issues.