Jennifer Mulle, PhD

Dr. Mulle is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine at Rutgers University. She earned her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University, her Master’s degree in Genetic Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and her PhD in Human Genetics from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She moved to Emory University for her Postdoctoral fellowship with Steve Warren, where she conducted research on the genetics of schizophrenia. As a postdoc, she made two major genetic discoveries, finding that the 7q11.23 duplication and the 3q29 deletion are both associated with schizophrenia. The 3q29 deletion has the highest effect size for schizophrenia of any variant yet identified, with an estimated 40-fold increased risk for individuals with the deletion.

While this discovery was exciting, it also highlighted an immediate challenge: very little was known about the 3q29 deletion in 2010. As a faculty member at Emory University, Dr. Mulle formed the 3q29 Project, an interdisciplinary collaborative designed to understand the phenotypic spectrum, natural history, and molecular mechanism of 3q29 deletion syndromes. We now know that the 3q29 deletion is associated with a wide array of neurodevelopmental conditions, including high risk for cognitive disability, autism, anxiety disorders, and ADHD. In 2021 Dr. Mulle joined the faculty at Rutgers. Dr. Mulle uses the 3q29 deletion as a model to identify the molecular and cellular underpinnings of schizophrenia, autism, and associated neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. Dr. Mulle is passionate about the potential for rare variants to enhance our understanding of common complex neurodevelopmental conditions.