Christopher Cowan
Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Neuroscience
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, intellectual disability, seizure disorders and injury to the developing brain, carry lifelong challenges and large social and economic costs. South Carolina is estimated to have a higher rate of ASD diagnosis, and a larger share of autistic people with significant cognitive impairment, than the nation as a whole.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Genetics
Computer Science
- Topics
neurodevelopmental disorders
autism spectrum disorder
intellectual disability
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Feb 2028
What they work on
- Mentor early-career scientists studying neurodevelopmental disorders toward independent NIH funding, using a mentoring plan that pairs each with internal and external mentors.
- Establish shared cores for mouse behavioral phenotyping, small-animal brain imaging, and genomics and bioinformatics that serve neurodevelopment researchers across MUSC.
- Provide computing infrastructure, including a 200-core cluster, pipelines for sequencing and single-cell multiomics, and a GitLab repository, for analyzing genetic, gene-activity and epigenomic data.
- Train investigators and their trainees to analyze genetic, transcriptomic and epigenomic datasets, with expert staff carrying out complex analyses.
More about the research
Cowan's grants support a research center at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) built to grow research on how the brain develops and what goes wrong in these disorders. One grant funds the center overall. The other funds its genomics and data-analysis core.
Why it matters
The center aims to improve the health and well-being of people with neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, ADHD, intellectual disability and seizure disorders. It does this by building a lasting research hub in South Carolina, a state with a higher estimated autism rate. Shared mouse behavior, brain imaging and genomic analysis resources could speed basic, translational and clinical studies of these conditions.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Eduardo Villamor
University of Michigan, MI·Public Health & Epidemiology
Build a whole-country cohort of more than 1.4 million grandmother–parent–grandchild triads by linking nationwide Swedish registries.
Jovanny Zabaleta
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans, LA·Genetics
Provide next-generation sequencing services, including whole transcriptome and RNA sequencing, whole exome sequencing, and array-based DNA methylation and SNP analysis, to cancer research project leaders.
Yanyuan Wu
Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Provide next-generation sequencing, genomics and bioinformatics services to university investigators, so that African American and Hispanic communities are better represented in genomic research.
The school
Medical University of South Carolina: 19 labs on PI Pages, $321M a year on research, 271 research doctorates a year.
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