A neurodevelopment research initiative

Paola Arlotta, PhD

Human Developmental Neurobiology Hub Co-Lead

Dr. Paola Arlotta is the Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. She is a principal investigator at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and an associate member of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She serves on the scientific advisory boards of many academic and private Institutions, nationally and internationally.

Dr. Arlotta’s research program focuses on the brain, and she uses the embryo and advanced organoid models of the human brain to gain fundamental understanding of both the principles that govern normal brain development and of previously inaccessible mechanisms of human neurological disease. Her work has unearthed mechanistic principles by which cells of the cerebral cortex are built and challenged dogmas on the immutability of neurons within the brain. Her laboratory set a new conceptual framework for the role of myelin in the nervous system, discovering that different types of neurons of the cerebral cortex use myelin differently to implement complex functions. She is recognized world-wide as a pioneer and leader in the field of human brain organoids and chimeroids, stem cell-derived laboratory replicas of the human brain that her team developed to unprecedented levels of complexity, reliability and scalability. Using brain organoids, her laboratory investigates the mechanism of human neurological diseases, such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia, and works on brand new approaches to the development of therapies for pathologies affecting the human brain.

Dr. Arlotta received her MS in biochemistry from the University of Trieste, Italy, and her PhD in molecular biology from the University of Portsmouth, UK. She subsequently completed her postdoctoral training in neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. She has won numerous awards including the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award, the George Ledlie Prize, the Fannie Cox Prize, the Gutenberg Award, the Pradel Award, the Elena Leucrezia Cornaro Piscopia International Prize, the Feltrinelli International Prize, and the ISSCR Momentum Award, among many others. Her research is published and widely cited in many noteworthy journals including Nature, Science, and Cell, and in the popular press. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the Accademia dei Lincei, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Murat Günel, MD

Neurosensing & Neuromodulation Hub Co-Lead

Dr. Murat Günel, the Sterling Professor of Neurosurgery and Professor of Neurobiology and Genetics, was appointed Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Yale School of Medicine in 2014. He currently serves as Neurosurgeon-in-Chief of the Yale-New Haven Health System and Chair of the Yale Medicine Board. Dr. Günel is the Co-Director of the Yale Program on Neurogenetics and Director of the Yale Program in Brain Tumor Research. He received his medical degree from Istanbul University and completed his internship and neurosurgical residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital. His clinical expertise lies in complex cranial microneurosurgery.

Dr. Günel’s scientific work is guided by a unifying approach: to use mechanistic studies to understand disorders of brain development, vascular function, and tumor biology – and to translate those insights into neurosurgical strategies that restore neurological function. His research has defined the molecular and epigenetic architecture of neurodevelopmental disorders, including the discovery of WDR62 (Nature, 2010) and other gene mutations as a cause of lissencephaly and cortical malformations (Nature Genetics, 2011; Cell, 2014; Neuron, 2014), and more recently, the identification of mTOR pathway dysregulation as a convergent mechanism and potential therapeutic target in lissencephaly (Nature, 2025). He also contributed to foundational work identifying de novo mutations in autism spectrum disorder in collaboration with the State Lab (Nature, 2012). These insights now inform his leadership of the Yale site of a new initiative, which integrates imaging, electrophysiology, behavior, and genetics to develop noninvasive neuromodulatory and communication strategies for individuals with profound autism. This work represents the evolution of his research – from identifying mechanisms of dysfunction to developing tools that intervene directly at the level of neural circuits.

This translational model also underpins his work in brain tumors. In meningiomas, Dr. Günel’s group identified molecular subtypes defined by mutations in NF2, TRAF7, AKT1, SMO, and POLR2A, and demonstrated how epigenetic changes and enhancer reprogramming contribute to tumor progression (Science, 2013; Nature Genetics, 2016; Nature Communications, 2017, 2023). His team has characterized the clinical and anatomical correlates of these subtypes, enabling refined surgical planning and risk stratification. In gliomas, his research has described the malignant transformation of IDH1-mutant lower-grade gliomas into glioblastomas, driven by recurrent alterations in MYC, PTEN, and cell cycle regulators (Nature Genetics, 2016).

In parallel, his lab has advanced the understanding of intracranial aneurysms through both population-based and familial genetic studies. Genome-wide association studies identified common risk loci, including SOX17, CDKN2A/B, and EDNRA (Nature Genetics, 2008, 2010; PNAS, 2011), while whole-exome sequencing in extended pedigrees revealed rare deleterious mutations, including PPIL4, which regulates brain-specific angiogenesis (Nature Medicine, 2021). These findings continue to inform risk prediction and therapeutic development in cerebrovascular disease.

In 2015, Dr. Günel was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the highest distinction in medical sciences. He is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), which jointly honored him in 2022 with the Ralph G. Dacey Medal for Outstanding Cerebrovascular Research. In 2021, he received the WINN Award from the Society of Neurological Surgeons for sustained contributions to neuroscience research. Dr. Günel previously served as Chair of the AANS/CNS Cerebrovascular Section and has been elected to the Society of Neurological Surgeons and the Academy of Neurological Surgeons. In 2020, he was recognized by the Turkish Academy of Arts and Sciences for Outstanding Achievement in Health and Life Sciences.

Shafali Jeste, MD

IMPACT Network Clinical Coordinating Center Co-Lead

Dr. Jeste is a behavioral child neurologist specializing in autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Jeste is currently the Chair and Executive Medical Director of the Department of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Executive Director of the Children’s Discovery and Innovation Institute. She was most recently professor of Pediatrics and Neurology at the USC Keck School of Medicine, and the Las Madrinas Chair, Chief of Neurology and Co-Director of the Neurological Institute at CHLA. After earning a BA in philosophy from Yale University in 1997 and her MD from Harvard Medical School in 2002, Dr. Jeste completed a residency in child neurology and a fellowship in behavioral child neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital. She joined the faculty at UCLA in 2010 and then moved to Chief of Neurology. 

Dr. Jeste’s research is focused on developing methods to improve precision in the diagnosis and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders, with particular focus on the development of brain-based biomarkers. Her lab studies neurodevelopmental disorders from early infancy through late childhood. Dr. Jeste has designed innovative studies in early predictors of autism in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) that integrate biomarkers with behavior to define atypical development prior to the onset of autism. This work in TSC has led to the first randomized controlled clinical trial of behavioral intervention for these infants and has paved the way for other early intervention trials in rare genetic syndromes. She also has led initiatives in clinical trial readiness for neurodevelopmental disorders more broadly, both in genetic syndromes and in non-syndromic autism through the national Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials.

She has published more than 150 peer reviewed manuscripts over her career, many in high impact journals such as JAMA and Neurology. Dr. Jeste’s research is directly inspired by her clinical work, and she continues to prioritize excellence in clinical care of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. At UCLA she developed the Care and Research in Neurogenetic Syndromes (CARING) clinical program, and at CHLA the KiNDD (Kids with Neurogenetic and Developmental Disabilities) clinical program, each of which provides multidisciplinary evaluations and care for children with NDDs. Last year, Dr. Jeste launched an NDD fellowship at CHLA, one of only three in the country. Dr. Jeste’s work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Angelman Syndrome Foundation, the Dup15q Alliance, and the Simons Foundation. She holds several national and international leadership positions including the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Rare Disorders and Board of Directors of the TSC Alliance, and she recently served as the Chair of the International Baby Siblings Research Consortium. In the broader landscape of Pediatrics, Dr. Jeste recently has served on two National Academies of Science and Medicine committees, the first focused on the Pediatric workforce and the second on the landscape of Pediatric research.  In 2019 she was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for her innovations in research in early predictors and intervention for genetic neurodevelopmental disorders. In 2024 she received the Child Neurology Society Martha Bridge Denckla Award, a career achievement award for contributions made to the field of neurodevelopmental disorders. In her spare time, Dr. Jeste is often found at the side of a tennis court, cheering on her teenage sons, Nischal and Kiran, who are national tennis players. She loves to run and has run three marathons (Boston, LA and NYC), with plans for a fourth (Philly!) this fall. 

Kristy Johnson, PhD

Functional Communication Hub Co-Lead

Dr. Kristina Johnson is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University, jointly appointed in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Communication Sciences & Disorders. She holds an additional faculty appointment at the Yale School of Medicine. Kristy received her PhD in Affective Computing from MIT and was a postdoctoral fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the Rosamund Stone Zander Translational Neuroscience Center. She also earned an MS and Honors BS in Physics. Her research focuses on individuals with complex neurodevelopmental differences, especially those with autism, intellectual disabilities, rare genetic disorders, and minimal spoken speech. She works at the intersection of science and engineering, specializing in personalized naturalistic studies, developmental science, digital healthcare, and augmentative technology.

Nevan Krogan, PhD

Protein-Protein Interactions Hub Co-Lead

Nevan Krogan, PhD, is a molecular biologist and professor at the University of California San Francisco where he is also the Director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) under the UCSF School of Pharmacy. He is also a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes.

He led the work to create the SARS-CoV-2 interactome and assembled the QBI Coronavirus Research Group (QCRG), which includes hundreds of scientists from around the world. His research focuses on developing and using unbiased, quantitative systems approaches to study a wide variety of diseases with the ultimate goal of developing new therapeutics. 

Nevan serves as Director of The HARC Center, an NIH-funded collaborative group that focuses on the structural characterization of HIV-human protein complexes. Nevan is also the co-Director of four Cell Mapping initiatives: the Cancer Cell Mapping Initiative (CCMI), the Host Pathogen Map Initiative (HPMI), the Psychiatric Cell Map Initiative (PCMI), and the (QCRG AViDD) NIH grant which is the largest research grant awarded in the University of California history. These initiatives map the gene and protein networks in healthy and diseased cells with these maps being used to better understand disease and provide novel therapies to fight them.

Nevan has authored over 400 papers in the fields of genetics and molecular biology and has given over 400 lectures and seminars around the world. He is a Searle Scholar, a Keck Distinguished Scholar, a recipient of the Roddenberry Prize for Biomedical Research, and was recently elected to EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) membership. In recognition of his collaborative work bringing scientists across the globe to work together on SARS-CoV-2, Nevan Krogan was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 2021, the Louis Pasteur Medal in 2022, and the Research!America Discovery|Innovation|Health Prize in 2023.  In 2024, Nevan was named to the Cell Press 50 Scientists that Inspire.  In 2025, Nevan was awarded an Einstein Foundation Visiting Fellowship.

Andrew Krystal, MD

Neurosensing & Neuromodulation Hub Co-Lead

Dr. Krystal is the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF where he is also Director of the Clinical and Translational Sleep Research Laboratory, the Dolby Family Centers for Mood Disorders and the Interventional Psychiatry Program. The primary focus of his research is the development of biomarkers for mood disorders and sleep disorders and their application in developing novel personalized treatments for these conditions. 

Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD

IMPACT Network Clinical Coordinating Center Co-Lead

Dr. Mustafa Sahin is the Neurologist-in-Chief, a pediatric neurologist, and a developmental neurobiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Bronson Crothers Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He received his ScB degree from Brown University and his MD and PhD from Yale School of Medicine. He completed a pediatrics residency at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a child neurology residency at Boston Children’s Hospital. At Boston Children’s, he directs the Multi-disciplinary Tuberous Sclerosis Program. He is also the co-PI of the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center. He directs a national consortium to study biomarkers and comparative pathobiology in four genetic disorders (TSC, PHTS, Phelan McDermid Syndrome and SYNGAP1-ID) all associated with autism and intellectual disability, known as the Developmental Synaptopathies Consortium. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2023.

Stephan Sanders, BMBS, PhD

Genetic Medicines Hub Co-Lead

Stephan Sanders is a Professor of Paediatric Neurogenetics in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford, a member of the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and an affiliate of the New York Genome Center (NYGC). He trained as a paediatrician before undertaking a PhD and Postdoctoral studies in Genetics and Bioinformatics at Yale University. In 2014, he started his lab at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) before moving to Oxford in 2022.

His group specialises in the genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders, including genomics, functional genomics, and therapeutics. Dr Sanders is a leader of the Autism Sequencing Consortium, the BrainVar Project, and the SFARI autism sex-bias project. He is also Director of the MRC CoRE in Therapeutic Genomics. He was awarded the Theodore Reich Young Investigator Award by the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics (ISPG) in 2019 and the NARSAD Young Investigator Award by the Brain and Behaviour Research Foundation in 2015.

Nenad Sestan, MD, PhD

Human Developmental Neurobiology Hub Co-Lead

Nenad Sestan is the Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neuroscience, a professor of comparative medicine, genetics, and psychiatry, and a member of the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine. He obtained his MD from the University of Zagreb and his PhD in neurobiology from Yale University.

Sestan’s laboratory investigates how neural circuits form within the developing cerebral cortex. He also studies how neural circuits were modified during human evolution and may become compromised in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. Most recently, his laboratory discovered that the large mammalian (porcine) brain is more resilient to a lack of oxygen than previously thought. It also described a first-in-class technology that can restore brain perfusion and reverse some of the effects of oxygen deprivation.

Sestan is the recipient of several international honors and awards, including the Constance Lieber Prize, Krieg Cortical Discoverer Prize, NARSAD (National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression) Distinguished Investigator (awarded by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation), McDonnell Scholar and Krieg Cortical Scholar. He is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. He has been a member of the BrainSpan, BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network and PsychENCODE consortia and has been featured in Nature’s “10 People Who Mattered in Science in 2019”.

Meghan Swanson, PhD

Functional Communication Hub Co-Lead

Meghan Swanson, PhD is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota where she also serves as the Associate Director for the Center for Neurobehavioral Development. Dr. Swanson received her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York where she studied the social communication of autistic children using eye tracking, and worked on a parent-mediated intervention for autistic toddlers.  While completing postdoctoral training in neuroimaging and neurodevelopmental disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she was awarded a NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00). As a developmental and cognitive neuroscientist, Dr. Swanson’s program of research is focused on the neurobiology of communication for infants who develop autism. She also studies how infants and their parents communicate and how this early communication supports brain development and later language skills. The overarching goal of Dr. Swanson’s work is to identify outcome and monitoring biomarkers for the next generation of autism intervention studies. She co-directs the Cognition and Neurodevelopmental Studies (CNS) Lab at the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, which receives funding from the NICHD, NIMH, and NIDCD.

John Young, PhD

Protein-Protein Interactions Hub Co-Lead

John Young is the Chief Strategy Officer, Quantitative Biosciences Institute, University of California San Francisco and is the Founder of JY Scientific Consulting LLC. John was previously the Therapeutic Area Head of Infectious Diseases and Global Head of Pandemic Preparedness, at Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) in Basel, Switzerland. He served as a Board Member on the AMR Action Fund and on the Intrepid Alliance for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response. He was also a member of the Leadership Team of the FNIH/NIH-led ACTIV public-private partnership during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to Roche, John was a Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He is a recipient of the American Society for Microbiology’s Eli Lilly and Company-ELANCO Research Award, a co-recipient of the NIH Office of the Director’s Award, and a co-recipient of the Charles A. Sanders M.D. Partnership Award from the Foundation for the NIH. 

Tim Yu, MD, PhD

Genetic Medicines Hub Co-Lead

Dr. Yu is a physician-scientist in the Division of Genetics & Genomics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Research interests include the human genetics of autism and other neurodevelopmental diseases, and precision genomic medicine. His research group was a pioneer in developing pathways for n=1 individualized medicine. He continues to work closely with patients, foundations, physicians, and regulators to advance this pathway. He is founder of the N=1 Collaborative, an independent nonprofit devoted to developing practices for individualized medicine.