Daniel Weinberger

Dr. Daniel Weinberger serves as Director and CEO of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development and holds the academic rank of Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Neuroscience at the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University. His work focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying genetic risk for developmental brain disorders, particularly schizophrenia and related psychiatric conditions.

Research Interests: Dr. Weinberger’s research explores genetic regulation of the human brain transcriptome across lifespan, neurodevelopmental origins of psychiatric disorders, and polygenic risk models. His team analyzes large datasets from families with psychiatric disorders and normal volunteers, integrating genetic, cognitive, neuroimaging, and cellular biology approaches.

Key Projects: The Lieber Institute maintains clinical datasets on antipsychotic drug responses and utilizes molecular profiling to study gene expression differences linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and suicide. Recent studies emphasize placental biology’s role in schizophrenia risk and the impact of genetic ancestry on neurotypical populations.

Lab/Team: As director, he leads a multidisciplinary translational neurobiology team analyzing postmortem brain samples and living tissue to identify molecular pathways underlying mental health disorders. Collaborations include the BrainSeq Consortium for large-scale genomic studies.