Focus Areas in the Genomic Medicine Cycle
Major leadership positions
Faculty – Harvard Chemical Biology PhD Program
Overview
Our lab uses experimental approaches at the intersection of chemical biology, genetics and stem cell biology to investigate cellular pathways relevant to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism and related neuropsychiatric disorders.
We utilize complementary approaches in specific cellular subtypes and in three-dimensional cerebral organoids generated from human iPSCs. We employ a range of methods including high-content imaging to investigate synaptic biology, multi-electrode arrays to examine neuronal function along with transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic experiments. We seek to develop new small molecules that can modulate disease-related processes in patient-derived neurons and develop new therapeutic approaches for targeting cognitive deficits in psychiatric disorders.
Priority Projects
- Investigating neurobiology of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder using scRNA-seq and multi-electrode arrays in human cerebral organoids
- Interrogating cell-type specific differences in disease using iPSC-derived neuronal and glial subtypes, microglia and brain microvascular endothelial cells
- Dissecting the role of Arc in synaptic function in human cortical neurons in order to develop novel therapeutics targeting cognition in psychiatric disorders
- Elucidating mechanistic underpinnings of maternal immune activation using stage-specific environmental perturbation in developing human cerebral organoids
Lab Members
| Name: | Email: | Role: |
|---|---|---|
| Stephanie Santarriaga, PhD | ssantarriaga [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Postdoctoral Fellow |
| Wei-Kai Huang, PhD | whuang19 [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Postdoctoral Fellow |
| Annie Kathuria, PhD | akathuria [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Postdoctoral Fellow |
| Paulo Lizano, MD, PhD | plizano [@] partners.org | Assistant Professor |
| Kaia Gerlovin | kgerlovin [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Research Technician |
| Sovannarath Pong | spong [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Research Technician |
| Yasmin Layadi | ylayadi [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Graduate student |
| Hieu Tran | htran19 [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Undergraduate student |
| Lance Ward | lanceward [@] college.harvard.edu | Undergraduate student |
| Suravi Upadhyay | supadhyay3 [@] mgh.harvard.edu | High school student |
The Center for Genomic Medicine (CGM) comprises one of the largest and most vibrant hubs of genomic medicine research in the world. The CGM includes 46 faculty collaborating to define the ‘genomic medicine cycle’ – which envisages a genomics community seeking to advance research from basic genomics research to ultimately using genome information for diagnostics and targeted therapeutics. All of our investigators are faculty at Harvard Medical School, and many members of our community are also investigators at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.
