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Paola Arlotta is an institute member at the Ó³»­´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard and an associate member of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Ó³»­´«Ã½.

Arlotta’s research program focuses on the brain, and she uses the embryo and advanced organoid models of the human brain to gain fundamental understanding of both the principles that govern normal brain development and of previously inaccessible mechanisms of human neurological disease. Her work has unearthed mechanistic principles by which cells of the cerebral cortex are built, and challenged dogmas on the immutability of neurons within the brain. Her laboratory set a new conceptual framework for the role of myelin in the nervous system, discovering that different types of neurons of the cerebral cortex use myelin differently to implement complex functions. She is recognized world-wide as a pioneer and leader in the field of human brain organoids and chimeroids, stem cell-derived laboratory replicas of the human brain that her team developed to unprecedented levels of complexity, reliability and scalability. Using brain organoids, her laboratory investigates the mechanism of human neurological diseases, such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia, and works on brand new approaches to the development of therapies for pathologies affecting the human brain.

In addition to her work at the Ó³»­´«Ã½, Arlotta is the Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. She is also a principal investigator at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and serves on the scientific advisory boards of many academic and private institutions, nationally and internationally.

Arlotta received her M.S. in biochemistry from the University of Trieste, Italy, and her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Portsmouth in the UK. She subsequently completed her postdoctoral training in neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. She holds a college degree ad honoris from Harvard University and a Ph.D. ad honoris from the University of Munich. She has won numerous awards including the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award, the George Ledlie Prize, the Fannie Cox Prize, the Gutenberg Award, the Pradel Award, the Elena Leucrezia Cornaro Piscopia International Prize, the Feltrinelli International Prize, and many others, in addition to a Merkin Institute Fellowship at the Ó³»­´«Ã½. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, and her research is published and widely cited in many noteworthy journals including Nature, Science, and Cell, as well as in the popular press.

Photo credit: Sarah Bastille