Daniel H. Geschwind is an American physician-scientist whose laboratory has made pioneering discoveries in the biology of brain disorders and the genetic and genomic analyses of the

nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...

. His laboratory showed that gene co-expression has a reproducible network structure that can be used to understand neurobiological mechanisms in health, evolution, and disease. He led the first studies to define the molecular pathology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and several other

psychiatric disorders A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...

, and has made major contributions to defining the genetic basis of autism. Currently, he is the Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Professor of

Human Genetics Human genetics is the study of inheritance as it occurs in Human, human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, populatio ...

Neurology Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...

and

Psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior. ...

at the

David Geffen School of Medicine The UCLA School of Medicine (also known as the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA) is the accredited medical school of the University of California, Los Angeles. Founded in 1951, it is the second medical school in the University of Califor ...

at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA). He also directs the UCLA Neurogenetics Program and the UCLA Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART). Since March 2016 he has served as the Senior Associate Dean and Associate Vice Chancellor for Precision Health at UCLA.

Education and career

Geschwind received his A.B. degree in psychology and chemistry at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

, and his MD/PhD at

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the medical school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. It is the sixth-oldest m ...

under the supervision of

Susan Hockfield Susan Hockfield (born March 24, 1951) is an American neuroscientist who served as the 16th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2004 to 2012. Hockfield currently serves as a Professor of Neuroscience in MIT's Department ...

, graduating Alpha Omega Alpha. He then completed an internship in internal medicine and residency in neurology at UCLA. He has been a member of the UCLA faculty since 1997. He has trained over 70 graduate students and post-doctoral research fellows, and is among the highest cited scientists in neurology, neuroscience, systems biology, and precision health ( H index > 195). He has been named in Clarivate Analytics’

Highly Cited Researchers list Highly Cited Researchers is a list published annually by Clarivate of Academic authorship, academic authors whose Academic publishing#Scholarly paper, publications have received particularly high numbers of Citation, citations in academic journa ...

each year since 2017 and has been elected as member of the

National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), known as the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineerin ...

and the

Association of American Physicians The Association of American Physicians (AAP) is an honorary medical society founded in 1885 by the Canadian physician Sir William Osler and six other distinguished physicians of his era for "the advancement of scientific and practical medicine ...

Research

The Geschwind Lab at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine conducts research into three areas:

autism Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...

and neurodevelopmental disorders, neurodegenerative syndromes, and human brain evolution. The overarching goal of Geschwind's work is to develop a more mechanistic understanding of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases by integrative analyses that connect human genetic variation to genes and neurobiological pathways. Through functional genomics and large-scale data analyses that permit a more unbiased understanding of disease mechanisms, his laboratory's research has improved our understanding of human brain evolution and language, ASD and schizophrenia, repair of the damaged nervous system and neurodegenerative dementias including Frontotemporal Dementia, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and Alzheimer's disease. Together these studies have not only improved understanding of human brain disorders, but they also highlight the power of highly-parallel, high-throughput biology. Geschwind established the modern era of autism genetics research by developing and leading the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE) with the Cure Autism Now Foundation in 1997. AGRE was the first major community resource for genetic research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD), making biomaterials and phenotype data accessible to researchers worldwide. This initiative opened the field to many more researchers and led to significant discoveries, including the role of rare mutations and inherited genetic variation in ASD. He is an advocate for data sharing and led many national efforts, including PsychENCODE consortium, a public genomic data resource for mental health research. Over the last 10 years, he has led efforts with collaborators, including John Constantino and

Ami Klin Ami Klin is a Brazilian psychologist who studies autism. He is the first chief of autism and related disorders at the Marcus Autism Center, a wholly owned subsidiary of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Klin will also be a Georgia Research Allia ...

, to increase the representation of groups that have been historically underrepresented in autism research, via an NIH-funded Autism Center of Excellence Network that recruits African Americans with autism. His work in autism genetics and functional genomics has been highly influential by translating genetic findings into biological understanding. He developed the concept of ASD as a developmental disconnection syndrome, recognizing its extreme heterogeneity and framing it as “the autisms.” Geschwind pioneered the study of language and social endophenotypes in genetic studies and demonstrated how transcriptomic and epigenetic profiling could define the molecular pathology of ASD and other neuropsychiatric disorders. In 2011, he was the senior author of a study that identified chemical differences between the brains of people with autism and those without it. Specifically, the study found common patterns in gene expression in the frontal and temporal lobes of autistic individuals. Geschwind has published research on numerous genes involved in language and human brain evolution, such as FOXP2, and how they differ between humans and chimpanzees. Additionally, Geschwind is known for his research into factors affecting handedness and the differences in brain structure between left-handed and right-handed people.

Personal life

His brother, Michael Geschwind, is also a professor of

neurology Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...

Norman Geschwind Norman Geschwind (January 8, 1926 – November 4, 1984) was a pioneering American behavioral neurologist, best known for his exploration of behavioral neurology through disconnection models based on lesion analysis. Early life Norman Geschwi ...

, a pioneer in

behavioral neurology Behavioral neurology is a subspecialty of neurology that studies the impact of neurological damage and disease upon behavior, memory, and cognition, and the treatment thereof. Two fields associated with behavioral neurology are neuropsychiatry a ...

, is his father's first cousin. From 1965 to 1982, his father, Stanley Geschwind, served as the head of the Quantum and Solid-State Physics Department at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

Awards and prizes

* 2024 Distinguished Clinical Research Scholar and Educator in Residence, NIH * 2022 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health from the

* 2022 Cotzias Award and Lecture,

American Academy of Neurology The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) is a professional society representing over 40,000 neurologists and neuroscientists. As a medical specialty society it was established in 1948 by A.B. Baker of the University of Minnesota to advance the a ...

* 2021 Gold Medal, Society for Biological Psychiatry * 2015 Paul G Allen Distinguished Investigator Award * 2012 Ruane Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research from the

Brain & Behavior Research Foundation The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that funds mental health research. It was originally called the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia & Depression, or NARSAD. It received its nonpro ...

* 2011 Elected Member,

* 2008 Scientific Service Award from

Autism Speaks Autism Speaks Inc. is an American non-profit autism awareness organization and the largest autism research organization in the United States. It sponsors autism research and conducts awareness and outreach activities aimed at families, governm ...

* 2006 NIH MERIT Award * 2004 Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar Award from the

American Neurological Association The American Neurological Association (ANA) is a professional society of academic neurologists and neuroscientists devoted to advancing the goals of academic neurology; to training and educating neurologists and other physicians in the neurologic ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geschwind, Daniel H. American geneticists American neuroscientists Autism researchers Dartmouth College alumni Living people Members of the National Academy of Medicine David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA faculty Yale School of Medicine alumni Year of birth missing (living people)