David L. Pauls, Ph.D.

Dr. David L. Pauls is the Director of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit (PNGU) and Co-Director of the Center for the Study and Treatment of Autism and Related Syndromes (STARS) in the Center for Human Genetic Research and the Department of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Children's Hospital at MGH. Dr. Pauls received his Ph.D. from the Department of Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Minnesota. His early research focused on the genetics of behavior with special emphasis on mental retardation and high intelligence. His post-doctoral research in psychiatric genetic epidemiology was completed in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa School of Medicine under the supervision of Dr. Raymond Crowe and in the Department of Human Genetics and the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine under the supervision of Drs. Kenneth K. Kidd and Myrna Weissman. In his post-doctoral research, Dr. Pauls investigated the genetics of a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders including panic disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar affective disorder and the Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. Upon completion of his post-doctoral work, Dr. Pauls was appointed to the faculty of the Child Study Center, the Department of Human Genetics and the Department of Psychology at Yale University. At Yale he established a program of research focused on understanding the genetics of child neuropsychiatric disorders with special emphasis on Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, reading disability and autism. In September, 2001 Dr. Pauls was appointed as a Professor of Psychiatry (Genetics) in the Harvard Medical School and the Director of PNGU, a newly created Unit investigating the genetics of neuropsychiatric disorders. At the present time, there are nine faculty members in PNGU with active research programs in the genetics of psychotic disorders, anxiety disorders, autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, reading disability and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Dr. Pauls has been the recipient of numerous NIH grants that have funded his research over the last two decades, including a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. He is currently the Principal Investigator on a large multi-center genetic linkage study of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, which includes 13 different sites from the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and South Africa. He is also the Chair of the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation Genetics Collaborative that includes over 50 investigators from around the world. He has also served as a member and chair of several Study Sections in the Center of Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health.