Dr. Jeffrey D. Macklis

Jeffrey D. Macklis, M.D., D.Sc.Tech.

Macklis is the Max and Anne Wien Professor of Life Sciences in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, and Professor of Neurology [Neuroscience] at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and was founding Program Head, Neuroscience, Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He is co-Director of the Developmental and Regenerative Biology Ph.D. Program at Harvard University. He is an M.I.T. faculty member in the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST). His lab is directed toward both: 1) understanding molecular controls and mechanisms over neuron sub-type specification, development, diversity, axon guidance-circuit formation, and degeneration in the cerebral cortex; and 2) applying developmental controls toward both brain and spinal cord regeneration and directed differentiation for in vitro therapeutic and mechanistic screening. The lab focuses on neocortical projection neuron development and sub-type specification; neural progenitor / “stem cell” biology; induction of adult cortical neurogenesis; subtype-specific axonal growth cone biology; and directed neuronal subtype differentiation via molecular manipulation of neural progenitors and pluripotent cells (ES/iPS). He attended M.I.T. (S.B. Bioelectrical Engineering; S.B. Literature), Harvard Medical School (Harvard-M.I.T. HST Program), and graduate school at M.I.T. within HST, a student of Richard L. Sidman. He was a postdoctoral fellow in developmental neuroscience at HMS, where he also trained clinically in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Neurology in the Harvard Neurological Training Program (no longer clinically active since 2002). He is the recipient of a number of awards, including a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar Award, a Director’s Innovation Award from the NIH Director’s Office, the CNS Foundation Award, a Senator Jacob Javits (MERIT) Award in the Neurosciences from NINDS/NIH, the Cajal-Krieg Cortical Discoverer Prize. He is an Allen Distinguished Investigator of the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, a Brain Research Foundation Fellow, and recipient of a 2017 NIH Pioneer Award from the Office of the NIH Director.