|Biography|

Hello, I am Dr. Michael F. Wells from Columbus, Ohio.

I am a developmental neurobiologist with over 14 years of research experience. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Human Genetics at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. I received my undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 2008, and earned a PhD in Neurobiology from Duke University in 2015 under the mentorship of Dr. Guoping Feng (MIT). I completed my postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Kevin Eggan in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research of the Broad Institute and the Stem Cell & Regenerative Biology of Harvard University.

My research focuses on the genetic factors that govern the early development of the human brain, and ways in which these processes lead to variation in human traits and disease. Early in my career, I generated and characterized the Ptchd1 knockout mouse and identified the defective circuitry underlying the ADHD-like behaviors displayed by this mouse. I have since transitioned from mouse to human in vitro systems to investigate neurodevelopmental disorders of genetic and environmental origin. Through this work, I have discovered how Zika virus infects human neural progenitor cells and elucidated the impact of natural human genetic variation on susceptibility to this microcephaly-causing mosquito-borne virus.

My work has been published in numerous high-impact journals including Nature, Cell, and Neuron, and has been funded by many sources and competitive awards, including the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), the Harvard University FAS Dean’s Competitive Fund, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoctoral Enrichment Program, and the National Institutes of Mental Health in the form of a F31 Pre-doctoral Fellowship and a K99 Pathway to Independence award.

Outside of the laboratory, I am the Chair of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Trainee Advisory Committee and am a former SfN Early Career Policy Ambassador. In 2017, I co-founded the Wishart Group, a non-profit devoted to improving the mental health of musicians and artists, with Passion Pit frontman Michael Angelakos. In 2020, I launched the COVID-19 National Science Volunteer Database, which now consists of over 9,500 researchers willing to donate their time and advanced skills to the fight against this pandemic.