Aadil Rehan
M.D./Ph.D. Student
Aadil Rehan is a medical student in the South Texas Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD Program). He will enter into the graduate school portion of the training program in 2026.
About Me
I'm Aadil! I was born and raised in sunny San Diego, and I'm excited to be pursuing my MD/PhD in even sunnier San Antonio. When I was 4 years old, I remember asking myself something while observing bugs in the backyard: “How does life work?” In the almost 20 years since then, I’ve come to understand that it’s a question with potentially infinite answers, but that makes it all the more worth exploring. Learning about my family history of dementia caused me to focus my interest on the brain: how it develops, how it’s wired, how neurons talk to each other normally and in disease states. My passion for research and medicine further developed in high school through hospital and research internships, which continued throughout my undergraduate study. During my gap year, I presented my research at conferences and did some clinical volunteering in Guatemala, which further strengthened my conviction to be a physician-scientist. I can’t wait to channel this excitement into my work here!
Hobbies/Interests
Reading, hiking, cooking, Bollywood dance, singing, working out (definitely a work in progress)
Research Topic
Neural circuits, Alzheimer's, aging disease
Why I chose MD/PhD
I love learning, I love caring for people, I love problem solving, and I wanted a career that would integrate all three. I see research and medicine as deeply connected; research helps to advance medicine and medicine inspires and guides research. An MD-PhD allows me to continue to explore mysteries of life at the molecular level as well as to provide care to people in need.
Why I chose MD/PhD at UT Health San Antonio
In speaking to faculty and students in both the lab and the clinic, I felt that their work wasn't simply a job for them, but a calling. The welcoming people, the sense of community, and the robust aging and cancer research led me to choose UT Health San Antonio as my home for the next 7-8 years.
Education
Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, BS, University of California-Los Angeles
Publications
Smolin, N., Dombrovski, M., Hina, B. W., Moreno-Sanchez, A., Gossart, R., Carmona, C. R., ... Rehan, A .... & von Reyn, C. R. (2024). Neuronal identity control at the resolution of a single transcription factor isoform. bioRxiv, 2024-06.
Dombrovski, M., Peek, M. Y., Park, J. Y., Vaccari, A., Sumathipala, M., Morrow, C., ... Rehan, A ... & Card, G. M. (2023). Synaptic gradients transform object location to action. Nature, 613(7944), 534-542.