Tanzila Mukhtar

My research seeks to understand how the human brain develops and why this process goes awry in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. To investigate these questions, I combine human genetics, stem-cell biology, developmental neurobiology, and genomics. More recently, I have become particularly interested in building patient-derived human models and biobanks that capture genetic and phenotypic diversity in underrepresented populations, including individuals of Indian ancestry. My goal is to understand how information encoded in the genome is dynamically interpreted during human brain development—and how disturbances in this process can lead to disease. I hope this work will not only provide fundamental insights into human neurobiology but also create better models for understanding disease mechanisms and, eventually, identifying more precise therapeutic strategies.