Sergiu Pasca, MD

Trained as a physician in Romania, Sergiu came for postdoctoral training at Stanford in 2009 where he developed some of the initial in vitro models of disease by deriving neurons from skin cells taken from patients with genetic brain disorders. His lab has afterwards introduced the use of instructive signals for reproducibly deriving self-organizing 3D cellular structures known as regionalized neural organoids or spheroids. To gain access to complex cellular interactions in the human brain, his research group also pioneered a modular system to study human neural circuits in preparations named assembloids.

Stanford profile

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Academic Appointments

• Keneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program
  
• CZI Ben Barres Investigator
  
• CZ Bio-Hub Investigator
  
• NYSCF Robertson Stem Cell Investigator

Other affiliations & positions

• Director of the Human Brain Organogenesis Program in the Stanford Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute
• Member, Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute
• Affiliate member, Stanford Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute 
• Faculty Fellow of the Stanford ChEM-H Institute
• Member, Stanford Bio-X
• Member, Child Health Research Institute

Honors & Awards

• IBRO-Kemali International Prize in Neuroscience (2022)
  
• ​TED speaker (2022)
  
• Judson Daland Prize, American Society of Philosophy (2021)
  
• Altman Award for Developmental Neuroscience, Japanese Neuroscience Society (2021)
• Schizophrenia Basic Science Award, Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) (2021)
• Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year Prize, Falling Walls, Germany (2020)
• ​C.J. Herrick Award in Neuroanatomy, American Association of Anatomy (2020)
• Nature Medicine’s Featured Physician-Scientists, Nature Medicine (2019)
• Daniel E. Efron Award, ACNP (2018)
• Günter Blobel Early Career Award, ASCB (2018)
• Vilcek Award for Creative Biomedical Promise (2018)
• ​A.E. Bennett Award for Biological Psychiatry (2018)
• NYSCF Roberston Stem Cell Investigator (2018-2022)
• Jordi Folch-Pi Award for Neurochemistry (2017)
• NARSAD Independent Investigator Award (2017)
• NIMH Director's BRAINS Award, NIMH (2015)
• Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Faculty Award (2015)
• MQ Fellow Award for Transforming Mental Health  (2014)
• NARSAD Young Investigator Award, BBRF (2013)
• ​Grand Prize Best Romanian Student Abroad (2013)
• Sammy Kuo Award, Best Postdoctoral publication in Neuroscience at Stanford University (2012)
• Best Postdoctoral Research Award at Stanford (2012)
• Tashia & John Morgridge Endowed Fellow (2010)
• IBRO Outstanding Research Fellow (2009)

​Professional Education

• Postdoctoral, Stanford University School of Medicine, California, Neuroscience (2013)
• Medical Doctor, Hatieganu School of Medicine, Romania, (2007)