Sergiu P. Pasca

Sergiu P. Pasca, MD is the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Endowed Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and the Uytengsu Family Founding Director of Stanford Brain Organogenesis. He is a CZI Ben Barres Investigator and a Chan Zuckerberg BioHub Investigator.

Sergiu is a cutting-edge researcher on the rules governing human brain assembly and the mechanisms of disease. His independent laboratory at Stanford has made revolutionary breakthroughs, transforming skin cells into multipurpose stem cells, and then into brain cells. These clumps of cells, known as “organoids,” resemble those found in the cerebral cortex—the most “human” part of our brains. He then combined several organoids to create “assembloids,” a pioneering modular platform that allows him to study how neural circuits develop and function. These cellular models have helped him gain revolutionary insights and develop new therapeutic approaches for human physiology, evolution, and disease.

Sergiu has also organized major international conferences, led group efforts with leaders in this new research area, and extensively supported hundreds of labs worldwide in implementing these techniques through courses. For his groundbreaking work, he’s been named a Knight of the Order of Merit, a Doctor Honoris Causa, and a New York Times Visionary in Medicine and Science. He has given a TED mainstage talk, was a NYSCF Robertson Investigator, and was featured as a physician-scientist by Nature Medicine.

During his clinical training in Romania, he used biochemistry and genetics to explore gene-environment interactions in autism and schizophrenia. He continued his neuroscience training at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt where he investigated the role of gamma oscillations in visual processing. Interested in studying the biology of disease in human neurons, he pursued postdoctoral studies in Ricardo Dolmetsch’s laboratory at Stanford University, where he developed some of the first cellular models with induced pluripotent stem cells to study neuropsychiatric disorders.

He is the recipient of the Vilcek Award for Creative Biomedical Promise (2018), the National Institute of Mental Health BRAINS Award (2015), the MQ Award for Transforming Mental Health (2014), the A.E. Bennett Award in Biological Psychiatry (2018), the Folch-Pi Neurochemistry Award (2017), the Günter Blobel Award for Cell Biology (2018), the Daniel E. Efron Award in Neuropsychopharmacology (2018), a Breakthrough in Life Sciences Prize (2020) from Falling Walls, the International Basic Science Schizophrenia Prize (2021), the Joseph Altman Award in Developmental Neuroscience (2021), the Theodore Reich Award (2021), the Judson Daland Prize from the American Philosophical Society (2021), the 13^th IBRO-Kemali Neuroscience Award (2022), and the CINP Sumitomo/Sunovion Award (2023).