Skip to Main Content

Kristen Brennand, PhD

she/her/hers
Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry
DownloadHi-Res Photo

Additional Titles

Co-director, Science Fellows Program

About

Titles

Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry

Co-director, Science Fellows Program

Biography

Kristen Brennand, PhD is the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Genetics at Yale University School of Medicine. She first established her independent laboratory in the Pamela Sklar Division of Psychiatric Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2012, after having completed post-doctoral training at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and PhD studies at Harvard University. Dr. Brennand’s research combines expertise in genomic engineering, neuroscience, and stem cells, to identify the mechanisms that underlie brain disease. Her focus lies in resolving the convergence of, and complex interplay between, the many risk variants linked to disease, towards the goal of facilitating the clinical translation of genetic findings. Dr. Brennand’s work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the New York Stem Cell Foundation, the Brain Research Foundation, and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

Appointments

Education & Training

Post-doctoral scientist
Salk Institute for Biological Studies (2012)
PhD
Harvard University, Molecular and Cellular Biology (2008)
BSc (Hon)
University of Calgary, Biology (2002)

Research

Overview

Each person’s distinct genetic, epigenetic, and environmental risk profile predisposes them to some phenotypes and confers resilience to others. My laboratory seeks to decode highly complex genetic insights into medically actionable information, better connecting the expanding list of genetic loci associated with human disease to pathophysiology. Our goal is to improve diagnostics, predict clinical trajectories, and identify pre-symptomatic points of therapeutic intervention.

Towards this, we employ a functional genomics approach that integrates stem cell models and genome engineering to resolve the impact of patient-specific variants across cell types, genetic backgrounds, and environmental conditions. Individually small risk effects combine to yield much larger impacts in aggregate, but the interactions between the myriad variants remain undetermined. Is there a “tipping point” between health and disease? Can ameliorative early interventions “untip” genetic disease risk? We seek to uncover disease-associated interactions within and between the cell types of the brain, querying the impacts of complex genetic risk within increasingly sophisticated neuronal circuits. Thus, we strive to translate risk “variants to genes”, “genes to pathways”, and “pathways to circuits”, revealing the convergent, additive, and synergistic relationships between risk factors within and between the cell types of the brain.

Even for highly penetrant mutations, a spectrum of phenotypes exist. We hope to understand the genetic, cellular, and environmental contexts that buffer genetic risk, and in doing so, develop interventions to help individuals achieve their greatest phenotypic potential. Thus, the variable penetrance of risk variants can be reframed as phenotypic resilience, evidence of biological “cures” capable of limiting, modifying, or preventing disease in individuals with otherwise high genetic predispositions. Such insights could identify therapeutics tailored to an individual’s specific risk profile, and so springboard the development of novel, personalized approaches to treat disease.

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Biological Psychiatry; Neurodegenerative Diseases

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Kristen Brennand's published research.

Publications

Featured Publications

2024

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • activity

    Brain and Behavior Research Foundation

  • activity

    Molecular Autism

  • activity

    Biological Psychiatry

  • activity

    Cell Stem Cell

  • activity

    NIMH

Get In Touch