David A. Alagpulinsa, PhD

David A. Alagpulinsa, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Medicine and Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and a member of the Yale Center for Molecular & Systems Metabolism. His research integrates human genetics, single-cell and multi-omic technologies, and functional experimental models to understand how hematopoietic function serves as a central biological mediator of genetic pleiotropy across multiple complex traits and diseases.

David earned his PhD in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where he investigated mechanisms that preserve genomic integrity in cancer. As a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, he expanded his research to autoimmune disease, developing immunotherapeutic strategies to protect endogenous and transplanted pancreatic islets for the treatment of type 1 diabetes without systemic immunosuppression.

In 2023, David joined Yale to establish the AlagsLab, an interdisciplinary research group dedicated to understanding how hematopoietic function shapes human health and disease. Using type 1 diabetes as a model system, his laboratory investigates how genetic variation shapes hematopoietic function to influence neuroimmune interactions, autoimmune disease susceptibility, and metabolic, cardiovascular, and neurocognitive outcomes. By integrating population-scale human genetics, single-cell multi-omics, and functional experimentation, his laboratory seeks to uncover the fundamental mechanisms underlying genetic pleiotropy and translate these discoveries into biomarkers, therapeutic targets, and precision medicine strategies that improve health across multiple organ systems.