Donna Werling, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Profile
About the Speaker: Donna Werling, PhD, is interested in the mechanisms by which genetic variation and sex-differential biology influence risk for neuropsychiatric conditions, with a major focus on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders. During her doctoral work in the laboratory of Dan Geschwind at the University of California, Los Angeles, Werling used functional genomics, human genetics and bioinformatics approaches to understand the relationship between sex and genetic risk in ASD.
During postdoctoral work in the laboratories of Matt State and Stephan Sanders at the University of California, San Francisco, Werling continued working on mechanisms underlying sex differences in ASD, while also expanding her expertise on ASD genetic risk through her collaborative efforts to develop the Category-Wide Associate Study (CWAS), an analytical framework for association testing of functional defined categories of coding and noncoding de novo variants.
Werling utilizes the expertise gained over the course of her PhD and postdoctoral training to characterize sex differences at both the cellular and tissue level in both ASD mouse models and individuals with ASD to understand the mechanisms underlying male bias in ASD prevalence.
For Further Information, Contact: Clark Kellogg at kellogg@waisman.wisc.edu
The seminar series is funded by the John D. Wiley Conference Center Fund, the Friends of the Waisman Center and Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) grant P50HD105353.
