The Geschwind Lab
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
We have moved. Please find our new lab website at https://geschwindlab.com.
Pioneering work in the Geschwind Lab integrates population genetics, functional genomics, and bioinformatics with basic and clinical neuroscience to advance our understanding of neurologic and psychiatric disease pathogenesis and to accelerate treatment development.
To achieve this, we:
  • work to identify genes that increase risk for autism and neurodegenerative dementia
  • model the effects of these genes using in vitro and in vivo systems, from human neurons to mouse models
  • use functional genomics and systems biology methods to integrate data and understand mechanisms
  • perform studies focused on developing new drugs or therapeutic approaches
Dr. Geschwind directs the newly formed Institute for Precision Health at UCLA Health, pioneering the integration of genetics and genomics with clinical medicine to advance the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
Learn More
News:

Elizabeth Ruzzo talks about our work identifying more than a dozen new autism risk genes and related research on CBS LA.

Cell, August 2019: Inherited and De Novo Genetic Risk for Autism Impacts Shared Networks.

We perform a comprehensive assessment of rare inherited variation in autism specturm disorder by analyzing whole-genome sequences of 2308 individuals from families with affected children, implicating 69 total and 16 new ASD risk genes.

Check out the newsroom release as well.

Our PsychENCODE publications in Science Magazine are organized around the themes of functional genomics in the developing and adult brain along with examinations of psychiatric disorders.

ALZForum reports on our publication in Nature Medicine, where our lab identified two key networks of dysregulated genes — one in neurons, the other in glia — in multiple animal models of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer’s disease.

Knowable Magazine featured our paper The Emerging Picture of Autism Spectrum Disorder: Genetics and Pathology.

Our paper in Neuron (A Quantitative Framework to Evaluate Modeling of Cortical Development by Neural Stem Cells) highlights key differences between widely used stem cell models and in vivo brains.