Christopher A. Walsh

Christopher Walsh is Bullard Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Genetics at Children's Hospital Boston, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He completed the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Chicago, a neurology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a fellowship in genetics at Harvard Medical School with Constance Cepko, pioneering studies of neuronal cell lineage and cell migration in the developing cerebral cortex. After establishing his own lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 1993, he undertook the analysis of developmental disorders of the human cerebral cortex, identifying—either alone or collaboratively-- more than a dozen genes mutated in human developmental brain disorders, including DCX, RELN, FLNA, ARFGEF2, POMT1, POMT2, CENPJ, ASPM, CDK5RAP2, AHI1, GPR56, LRP2, and COH1, PAK3 and CC2D1A, as well as two in the mouse (Dab1, αSnap). Identification of these genes has provided new diagnostic tests for patients and parents at risk. Dr. Walsh has also pioneered the study of these genes to provide mechanistic insights into human cerebral cortex development and function. Finally, he discovered that some genes that are mutated in human developmental brain disorders—including AHI1 and ASPM--were targets of the evolutionary processes that distinguished humans from our primate ancestors. Among his awards are a Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Research Award from the American Epilepsy Society. the Dreifuss-Penry Award from the American Academy of Neurology, and the Derek Denny-Brown award and Jacoby awards from the American Neurological Association.