Dr. Muotri is a professor at the Departments of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at University of California San Diego, where he is also the co-director of the new Gene Therapy Initiative, and the director of the Stem Cell Program and Archealization Center. Dr. Muotri earned a B.Sc. in biological sciences from the State University of Campinas in 1995 and a Ph.D. in genetics in 2001 from University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil. He moved to the Salk Institute as a Pew Latin America Fellow in 2002 for a postdoctoral training in neuroscience and stem cell biology. His research focuses on brain evolution and modeling neurological diseases using human-induced pluripotent stem cells and brain organoids. He has received several awards, including the prestigious NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation’s NARSAD Young Investigator Grant, the Emerald Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Surugadai Award, Rock Star of Innovation, the NIH EUREKA Award, and two Telly Awards for Excellence in Science Communication, among several others.

• Director of the UCSD Stem Cell Program;  Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, UCSD.
• Created the first human organoid models for neurodevelopmental disorders.
• He has received several awards, including the prestigious NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.