Brett Abrahams, Ph.D is based at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in
New York within the Departments of Genetics and Neuroscience. Work in
his laboratory employs a blend of human molecular genetics and work in
model systems to identify genes that may influence risk for autism and
in turn understand how they operate functionally. Of particular
interest is how variation in Contactin associated protein-like 2
(CNTNAP2), a gene he and others have implicated in multiple disorders
of cognition, may alter brain development and in turn modulates risk
for disease.
Dan E. Arking, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, with more than 15 years experience in human molecular genetics. Dr. Arking earned his doctoral degree in human from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2001 and completed a postdoctoral fellowiship at Johns Hopkins in the laboratory of Dr. Aravinda Chakravarti in 2005. Dr. Arking's research focuses on identifying and characterizing genetic variants underlying complex human disease, with a specific focus on cardiovascular disease and autism.
Dan Campbell, Ph.D.
Dr. Dan Campbell is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California with appointments in the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Pennsylvania State University. Prior to his appointment at USC, Dr. Campbell was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Pat Levitt at Vanderbilt University, where he discovered a functional variant in the MET gene that is associated with autism risk.
Heather C. Mefford, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of Pediatrics and Genetic Medicine at the University of Washington. She is also a clinical geneticist at Seattle Children's Hospital in the Medical Genetics Clinic. Dr. Mefford has a research laboratory devoted to using genomic approaches to understand pediatric disease and discover novel genomic disorders. She has been involved in the discovery and characterization of several new genomic disorders, including rearrangements of chromosomes 1q21, 15q13 and 17q12, each of which confer risk for a range of clinical features, including autism. In addition, her research group uses state-of-the-art technology to discover new copy number changes and mutations that underlie a variety of pediatric conditions, with a focus on epilepsy. Dr. Meffords clinical interests parallel her research interests and include seeing patients with genomic disorders and patients with neurocognitive defects of unknown etiology.
Eric Morrow is an M.D., Ph.D. in genetics and neurodevelopment at Harvard University. He received his MD degree from the Health Science Training Program at MIT and Harvard Medical School. During this medical training, Morrow developed a strong interest in the scientific challenges posed by childhood neuropsychiatric disorders. He conducted further clinical and scientific training in neurology and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Morrow was MGH Rappaport Neuroscience Scholar and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School prior to coming to Brown. His research focuses on normal molecular mechanisms of brain development, and genetic perturbations that underlie disorders of human cognitive development. At Brown, Morrow's research bridges between MCB and Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior where he directs the Developmental Disorders Genetics Research Program (DDGRP).
Lauren A. Weiss, Ph.D., earned her B.S. in Human Genetics from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Human Genetics from The University of Chicago. She did postdoctoral research in neuropsychiatric genetics jointly between Harvard (Massachusetts General Hospital) and MIT (Broad Institute) before joining the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco in 2008. Dr. Weiss is a Staglin Family/IMHRO Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, the Institute for Human Genetics, and the Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry at UCSF. Her laboratory is focused on dissecting the genetics of autism via analysis of large datasets under different genetic models and testing genetic mechanisms in human subject-derived cell culture and stem cell models.