Lauren Weiss, PhD
Professor
Psychiatry
School of Medicine

common variation, gene-sex interaction, gene-gene interaction, and gene-environment interaction.

We are also using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models to study known mutations or copy number variants predisposing to autism. We will first identify the effects of genetic risk variants and then be able to ascertain whether the effects of genetic risk can be modified at the cellular level by environmental or pharmacological agents. These models will be used to test hypotheses emerging from our genetic datasets.

Our long term goals are to use genetic tools to improve understanding, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of autism and related traits.

• Inflammatory Conditions During Pregnancy and Risk of Autism and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders.
  Biological psychiatry global open science 2023 Croen LA, Ames JL, Qian Y, Alexeeff S, Ashwood P, Gunderson EP, Wu YW, Boghossian AS, Yolken R, Van de Water J, Weiss LA
• Combinations of genes at the 16p11.2 and 22q11.2 CNVs contribute to neurobehavioral traits.
  PLoS genetics 2023 Vysotskiy M, Autism Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, Bipolar Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics…
• Relationships between levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals and immune markers in maternal circulation during mid-pregnancy.
  ISEE Conference Abstracts 2022 Jennifer Ames, Stacey Alexeeff, Paul Ashwood, Kimberly Berger, Ghassan Hamra, Martin Kharrazi, Kristen Lyall, Judy Van de Water, Heather Volk, Lauren Weiss, Gayle Windham, Robert Yolken, Cathleen …
• Can the "female protective effect" liability threshold model explain sex differences in autism spectrum disorder?
  Neuron 2022 Dougherty JD, Marrus N, Maloney SE, Yip B, Sandin S, Turner TN, Selmanovic D, Kroll KL, Gutmann DH, Constantino JN, Weiss LA
• Sex-heterogeneous SNPs disproportionately influence gene expression and health.
  PLoS genetics 2022 Traglia M, Bout M, Weiss LA
• Integration of genetic, transcriptomic, and clinical data provides insight into 16p11.2 and 22q11.2 CNV genes.
  Genome medicine 2021 Vysotskiy M, Zhong X, Miller-Fleming TW, Zhou D, Autism Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium^, Bipolar Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium^, Schizophrenia …
• A profile and review of findings from the Early Markers for Autism study: unique contributions from a population-based case-control study in California.
  Molecular autism 2021 Lyall K, Ames JL, Pearl M, Traglia M, Weiss LA, Windham GC, Kharrazi M, Yoshida CK, Yolken R, Volk HE, Ashwood P, Van de Water J, Croen LA
• Examining Sex-Differentiated Genetic Effects Across Neuropsychiatric and Behavioral Traits.
  Biological psychiatry 2021 Martin J, Khramtsova EA, Goleva SB, Blokland GAM, Traglia M, Walters RK, Hübel C, Coleman JRI, Breen G, Børglum AD, Demontis D, Grove J, Werge T, Bralten J, Bulik CM, Lee PH, Mathews CA, Peterson RE, …
• Publisher Correction: Rates, distribution and implications of postzygotic mosaic mutations in autism spectrum disorder.
  Nature neuroscience 2020 Lim ET, Uddin M, De Rubeis S, Chan Y, Kamumbu AS, Zhang X, D'Gama AM, Kim SN, Hill RS, Goldberg AP, Poultney C, Minshew NJ, Kushima I, Aleksic B, Ozaki N, Parellada M, Arango C, Penzol MJ, Carracedo A…
• Autism in neurofibromatosis type 1: misuse of covariance to dismiss autistic trait burden.
  Developmental medicine and child neurology 2020 Morris SM, Acosta MT, Garg S, Green J, Legius E, North K, Payne JM, Weiss LA, Constantino JN, Gutmann DH
• Genetic Contributions to Maternal and Neonatal Vitamin D Levels.
  Genetics 2020 Traglia M, Windham GC, Pearl M, Poon V, Eyles D, Jones KL, Lyall K, Kharrazi M, Croen LA, Weiss LA
• Mapping cis-regulatory chromatin contacts in neural cells links neuropsychiatric disorder risk variants to target genes.
  Nature genetics 2019 Song M, Yang X, Ren X, Maliskova L, Li B, Jones IR, Wang C, Jacob F, Wu K, Traglia M, Tam TW, Jamieson K, Lu SY, Ming GL, Li Y, Yao J, Weiss LA, Dixon JR, Judge LM, Conklin BR, Song H, Gan L, Shen Y
• cis-Regulatory Chromatin Contacts in Neural Cells Reveal Contributions of Genetic Variants to Complex Neurological Disorders.
  bioRxiv 2018 Michael Song, Xiaoyu Yang, Xingjie Ren, Lenka Maliskova, Bingkun Li, Ian Jones, Chao Wang, Fadi Jacob, Kenneth Wu, Michela Traglia, Tsz Wai Tam, Kirsty Jamieson, Si-Yao Lu, Guo-Li Ming, Jun Yao, …
• Cross-genetic determination of maternal and neonatal immune mediators during pregnancy.
  Genome medicine 2018 Traglia M, Croen LA, Jones KL, Heuer LS, Yolken R, Kharrazi M, DeLorenze GN, Ashwood P, Van de Water J, Weiss LA
• Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain.
  Science (New York, N.Y.) 2018 Brainstorm Consortium, Anttila V, Bulik-Sullivan B, Finucane HK, Walters RK, Bras J, Duncan L, Escott-Price V, Falcone GJ, Gormley P, Malik R, Patsopoulos NA, Ripke S, Wei Z, Yu D, Lee PH, Turley P, …
• RASopathies are associated with a distinct personality profile.
  American journal of medical genetics. Part B, Neuropsychiatric genetics : the official publication of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics 2018 Bizaoui V, Gage J, Brar R, Rauen KA, Weiss LA
• Age and ASD symptoms in Costello syndrome.
  American journal of medical genetics. Part A 2018 Young O, Perati S, Weiss LA, Rauen KA
• Recurrent reciprocal copy number variants: Roles and rules in neurodevelopmental disorders.
  Developmental neurobiology 2018 Deshpande A, Weiss LA
• Cellular Phenotypes in Human iPSC-Derived Neurons from a Genetic Model of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
  Cell reports 2017 Deshpande A, Yadav S, Dao DQ, Wu ZY, Hokanson KC, Cahill MK, Wiita AP, Jan YN, Ullian EM, Weiss LA
• Prenatal Serum Concentrations of Brominated Flame Retardants and Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability in the Early Markers of Autism Study: A Population-Based Case-Control Study in California.
  Environmental health perspectives 2017 Lyall K, Croen LA, Weiss LA, Kharrazi M, Traglia M, Delorenze GN, Windham GC
• Rates, distribution and implications of postzygotic mosaic mutations in autism spectrum disorder.
  Nature neuroscience 2017 Lim ET, Uddin M, De Rubeis S, Chan Y, Kamumbu AS, Zhang X, D'Gama AM, Kim SN, Hill RS, Goldberg AP, Poultney C, Minshew NJ, Kushima I, Aleksic B, Ozaki N, Parellada M, Arango C, Penzol MJ, Carracedo A…
• Correction: Pleiotropic Mechanisms Indicated for Sex Differences in Autism.
  PLoS genetics 2017 Mitra I, Tsang K, Ladd-Acosta C, Croen LA, Aldinger KA, Hendren RL, Traglia M, Lavillaureix A, Zaitlen N, Oldham MC, Levitt P, Nelson S, Amaral DG, Hertz-Picciotto I, Fallin MD, Weiss LA
• Most Frequently Reported Prescription Medications and Supplements in Couples Planning Pregnancy: The LIFE Study.
  Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) 2017 Palmsten K, Flores KF, Chambers CD, Weiss LA, Sundaram R, Buck Louis GM
• Independent Maternal and Fetal Genetic Effects on Midgestational Circulating Levels of Environmental Pollutants.
  G3 (Bethesda, Md.) 2017 Traglia M, Croen LA, Lyall K, Windham GC, Kharrazi M, DeLorenze GN, Torres AR, Weiss LA
• Reverse Pathway Genetic Approach Identifies Epistasis in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
  PLoS genetics 2017 Mitra I, Lavillaureix A, Yeh E, Traglia M, Tsang K, Bearden CE, Rauen KA, Weiss LA
• Genetic Mechanisms Leading to Sex Differences Across Common Diseases and Anthropometric Traits.
  Genetics 2016 Traglia M, Bseiso D, Gusev A, Adviento B, Park DS, Mefford JA, Zaitlen N, Weiss LA
• Disease Burden and Symptom Structure of Autism in Neurofibromatosis Type 1: A Study of the International NF1-ASD Consortium Team (INFACT).
  JAMA psychiatry 2016 Morris SM, Acosta MT, Garg S, Green J, Huson S, Legius E, North KN, Payne JM, Plasschaert E, Frazier TW, Weiss LA, Zhang Y, Gutmann DH, Constantino JN
• Pleiotropic Mechanisms Indicated for Sex Differences in Autism.
  PLoS genetics 2016 Mitra I, Tsang K, Ladd-Acosta C, Croen LA, Aldinger KA, Hendren RL, Traglia M, Lavillaureix A, Zaitlen N, Oldham MC, Levitt P, Nelson S, Amaral DG, Hertz-Picciotto I, Fallin MD, Weiss LA
• If genetic variation could talk: What genomic data may teach us about the importance of gene expression regulation in the genetics of autism.
  Molecular and cellular probes 2016 Yeh E, Weiss LA
• Autonomous and Non-autonomous Defects Underlie Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy in BRAF-Mutant hiPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes.
  Stem cell reports 2016 Josowitz R, Mulero-Navarro S, Rodriguez NA, Falce C, Cohen N, Ullian EM, Weiss LA, Rauen KA, Sobie EA, Gelb BD
• Prenatal levels of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) in association with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
  ISEE Conference Abstracts 2016 Gayle Windham*, Kristen Lyall, Martin Kharrazi, Lauren Weiss, Lisa Croen
• Human iPS Cell-Derived Neurons Uncover the Impact of Increased Ras Signaling in Costello Syndrome.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2016 Rooney GE, Goodwin AF, Depeille P, Sharir A, Schofield CM, Yeh E, Roose JP, Klein OD, Rauen KA, Weiss LA, Ullian EM
• Dysregulation of astrocyte extracellular signaling in Costello syndrome.
  Science translational medicine 2015 Krencik R, Hokanson KC, Narayan AR, Dvornik J, Rooney GE, Rauen KA, Weiss LA, Rowitch DH, Ullian EM
• Joint analysis of psychiatric disorders increases accuracy of risk prediction for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder.
  American journal of human genetics 2015 Maier R, Moser G, Chen GB, Ripke S, Cross-Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, Coryell W, Potash JB, Scheftner WA, Shi J, Weissman MM, Hultman CM, Landén M, Levinson DF, …
• Psychiatric genome-wide association study analyses implicate neuronal, immune and histone pathways.
  Nature neuroscience 2015 Network and Pathway Analysis Subgroup of Psychiatric Genomics Consortium
• Abstract 19583: Autonomous and Non-Autonomous Defects Underlie Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy in BRAF-Mutant hiPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes.
  Circulation 2014 Rebecca Josowitz, Sonia Mulero-Navarro, Christine Falce, Ninette Cohen, Erik M Ullian, Lauren A Weiss, Katherine A Rauen, Eric A Sobie, Bruce D Gelb
• Synaptic, transcriptional and chromatin genes disrupted in autism.
  Nature 2014 De Rubeis S, He X, Goldberg AP, Poultney CS, Samocha K, Cicek AE, Kou Y, Liu L, Fromer M, Walker S, Singh T, Klei L, Kosmicki J, Shih-Chen F, Aleksic B, Biscaldi M, Bolton PF, Brownfeld JM, Cai J, …
• Cell-autonomous correction of ring chromosomes in human induced pluripotent stem cells.
  Nature 2014 Bershteyn M, Hayashi Y, Desachy G, Hsiao EC, Sami S, Tsang KM, Weiss LA, Kriegstein AR, Yamanaka S, Wynshaw-Boris A
• SFARI Gene 2.0: a community-driven knowledgebase for the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).
  Molecular autism 2013 Abrahams BS, Arking DE, Campbell DB, Mefford HC, Morrow EM, Weiss LA, Menashe I, Wadkins T, Banerjee-Basu S, Packer A
• Age-dependent brain gene expression and copy number anomalies in autism suggest distinct pathological processes at young versus mature ages.
  PLoS genetics 2012 Chow ML, Pramparo T, Winn ME, Barnes CC, Li HR, Weiss L, Fan JB, Murray S, April C, Belinson H, Fu XD, Wynshaw-Boris A, Schork NJ, Courchesne E
• Autism genetics: emerging data from genome-wide copy-number and single nucleotide polymorphism scans.
  Expert review of molecular diagnostics 2009 Weiss LA
• New insights into genomic variation in health and disease.
  Genome medicine 2009 Weiss LA
• Preliminary evidence of association between EFHC2, a gene implicated in fear recognition, and harm avoidance.
  Neuroscience letters 2009 Blaya C, Moorjani P, Salum GA, Gonçalves L, Weiss LA, Leistner-Segal S, Manfro GG, Smoller JW
• Microdeletion/duplication at 15q13.2q13.3 among individuals with features of autism and other neuropsychiatric disorders.
  Journal of medical genetics 2008 Miller DT, Shen Y, Weiss LA, Korn J, Anselm I, Bridgemohan C, Cox GF, Dickinson H, Gentile J, Harris DJ, Hegde V, Hundley R, Khwaja O, Kothare S, Luedke C, Nasir R, Poduri A, Prasad K, Raffalli P, …
• Association Between Microdeletion and Microduplication at 16p11.2 and Autism.
  Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey 2008 Lauren A Weiss, Yiping Shen, Joshua M. Korn, Dan E. Arking, David T. Miller, Ragnheidur Fossdal, Evald Saemundsen, Hreinn Stefansson, Manuel A. R. Ferreira, Todd Green, Orah S. Platt, Douglas M. …
• Disruption of neurexin 1 associated with autism spectrum disorder.
  American journal of human genetics 2008 Kim HG, Kishikawa S, Higgins AW, Seong IS, Donovan DJ, Shen Y, Lally E, Weiss LA, Najm J, Kutsche K, Descartes M, Holt L, Braddock S, Troxell R, Kaplan L, Volkmar F, Klin A, Tsatsanis K, Harris DJ, …
• Integrin beta 3 genotype influences asthma and allergy phenotypes in the first 6 years of life.
  The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology 2007 Thompson EE, Pan L, Ostrovnaya I, Weiss LA, Gern JE, Lemanske RF, Nicolae DL, Ober C
• Molecular genetics of the platelet serotonin system in first-degree relatives of patients with autism.
  Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2007 Cross S, Kim SJ, Weiss LA, Delahanty RJ, Sutcliffe JS, Leventhal BL, Cook EH, Veenstra-Vanderweele J
• 431: Genome-Wide Screen Identifies Two Novel Loci Associated with Morning Serum Cortisol Levels in Women.
  American Journal of Epidemiology 2005 L M Kurina, L A Weiss, S W Graves, R Parry, G H Williams, M Abney, C Ober
• Sex differences in the genetic basis of morning serum cortisol levels: genome-wide screen identifies two novel loci specific to women.
  The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism 2005 Kurina LM, Weiss LA, Graves SW, Parry R, Williams GH, Abney M, Ober C
• Variation in ITGB3 has sex-specific associations with plasma lipoprotein(a) and whole blood serotonin levels in a population-based sample.
  Human genetics 2005 Weiss LA, Abney M, Parry R, Scanu AM, Cook EH, Ober C
• Variation in ITGB3 is associated with asthma and sensitization to mold allergen in four populations.
  American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine 2005 Weiss LA, Lester LA, Gern JE, Wolf RL, Parry R, Lemanske RF, Solway J, Ober C