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Scientific consultants
Brett Abrahams
Assistant Professor, Depts. of Genetics & Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Rm 477, Price Center for Genetic & Translational Medicine, NY 10461.
Dr Abrahams received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from University of British Columbia in 2004. He was a post-doctoral fellow in Neurogenetics at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2009.
His work is aimed towards understanding how genetic variation shapes human brain development and impacts disease risk. He employs his throughput genomic strategies to identify disease-linked variation and understand the mechanistic consequence of defined variants in cell-based and in vivo model systems. Recent work he led at UCLA identified Contactin-Associated Protein-like 2 (CNTNAP2) as an important modulator of autism risk and language development.
Ongoing work is poised to clarify mechanisms underlying the Autism Spectrum Disorders, define therapeutic entry points, and organize molecular relationships between clinically distinct neurobehavioral disorders.
Since 2010, Dr Abrahams is member of the Gene Advisory Board, of SFARI (Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative).
Emmanuelle Genin
Research Director at INSERM U946 Variabilité Génétique et Maladies Humaines, Fondation Jean Dausset-CEPH, Université Paris Diderot, Villejuif, France
Emmanuelle Genin received her PhD in Population Genetics from the University of Paris (UPMC) in 1997. After a year of post-doctoral research in the Department of Integrative Biology of the University of California in Berkeley, she worked as research fellow in the start-up company Hexagen in Cambridge before joining the French National Center for Medical Researches (INSERM) in 1999. She is now research director at INSERM, and her research interests are in the area of Statistical and Population Genetics with a focus on the development of statistical methods to evidence genes involved in common diseases and to account for population structure (French Government Fellow– 2009/2010).
Jorg Hager
Head of Human Genetics, CEA-Genomic Institute, Paris, France
Jorg Hager received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Bonn in 1993 and moved to France to the Human Polymorphism Study Center, concentrating on the identification of genes for type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity. In 1995 he became head of Obesity research of the Metabolic Disease department at the Pasteur Institute in Lille, France. He moved to Evry in 1998 as head of genotyping and multifactorial disease genetics, at the newly founded National Genotyping Center. In 2001 he founded IntegraGen as a spin-off of this center, and held the position of Chief Scientific Officer from 2001 to 2009, with major responsibilities: planning, presentation and execution of core projects of the company in the fields of metabolic and CNS diseases, especially autism; analysis and interpretation of results from R&D activities; development of product profiles; decision for implementation of scientific strategies and new technology platforms (genotyping, robotics, etc.).
Dr Hager joined CEA in April 2009, as Head of Human Genetics, at CEA–Genomic Institute, with the responsibility for Research activities to identify and validate genes implicated in complex human diseases, with a focus on metabolic disorders and cancer research.
Antonio Persico
Antonio Persico is an Associate Professor of Physiology at the "Campus Bio-Medico" University, and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and Psychiatric Genetics at the Fondazione Santa Lucia in Rome, Italy.
After graduating from Catholic University Medical School in Rome in 1986, he studied neuropsychiatric genetics and the mechanisms of drug-induced changes in brain cells and synapses, at the National Institutes of Health and other laboratories in the United States and Italy. In the 1990s he turned his attention to autism, and the interacting genetic and environmental factors that can predispose to or protect against it.
Pr. Persico was awarded from National Academy of Sciences – USA (2007) – Cozzarelli Prize, for his paper titled "A genetic variant that disrupts MET transcription is associated with autism".
He is member of various professional organizations and scientific societies, such as the American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG), the Italian Psychiatric Association, the Italian Society for Physiology, the Society for Neuroscience, and Secretary of the Italian Society for Autism Research and Training.
Gerard Schellenberg
Dr. Schellenberg received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California, Riverside, in 1978. He moved to the University of Washington in 1979, where he was a post-doctoral fellow in Genetics and Neurology. In 1983, he was appointed Research Assistant Professor in Neurology, where he rose to the rank of Research Professor in 1995. At this point, his primary appointment was in the Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, and he was also an adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Neurology and Pharmacology. Dr. Schellenberg moved to the University of Pennsylvania in 2008, where he is presently a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
For the past 18 years, Dr. Schellenberg has worked on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease. He is founder and head of the Alzheimer's Disease Genetics Consortium, supported by the National Institute on Aging. He is also working on the molecular genetics of other neurodegenerative disorders related to Alzheimer's disease.
Dr. Schellenberg leads the Alzheimer's Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC), which is comprised of a group of investigators who are using genome-wide association analysis methods to identify Alzheimer's disease.
Dr. Schellenberg is also working on unraveling the genetics of autism, a complex neurodevelopmental disorder. He participates in the Autism Genome Project consortium. His current efforts focus on deep sequencing of genes suspected of being involved in autism risk.