Hi, I’m George!

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Geschwind at UCLA with over 10 years of biomedical research experience. I received my undergraduate degree in Human Biology from UC San Diego, where I did research on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia in the lab of Dr. Thomas Kipps, and my PhD in Biomedical Sciences from UC Irvine, under the mentorship of Dr. Marian Waterman. Moving up the California coast, I joined the lab of Dr. Daniel Geschwind for my postdoctoral fellowship.

My current research stems from the understanding that most identified high-confidence autism risk genes are known to, or predicted to, have their mutational effect through haploinsufficiency, in which a single copy of a functional gene is not sufficient for normal brain development or function. These genes have an interesting liability, in that their expression is highly dosage sensitive; overexpression has also been demonstrated to generate adverse phenotypes. I used CRISPR-activation (CRISPR-A) to target enhancer sites for haploinsufficient autism risk genes, with the goal of increasing expression of the wildtype allele to near normal levels, while maintaining endogenous gene regulatory systems to prevent overexpression, a problem in other gene activation approaches. Using stem cells from affected patients, I establish and characterize human cortical organoids to understand how these genes affect development. I then designed and screened guide RNA sequences targeted to fetal brain-specific enhancers, first using 2D neural progenitor cell cultures to determine CRISPR-A efficacy. Treating haploinsufficient organoids with CRISPR-A and the validated guides significantly increased target gene expression, but more importantly, lead to a rescue of the mutant phenotypes. These results provide strong evidence of the potential of CRISPR-A as a therapeutic intervention for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs).

Outside of the lab, I have been passionately involved in inspiring underrepresented groups to pursue STEM careers through my involvement with two global non-profit organizations, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) and the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation (RECF), both of whom organize educational robotics competitions for students from elementary through college.