Pauls, David L., PhD

Title: Professor
Department:  Psychiatry and Genetics
Institution: Harvard Medical School
Mailing Address: 185 Cambridge St., 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02114
Phone: (617) 726-0793
dpauls@pngu.mgh.harvard.edu

Dr. Pauls became director of the newly created PNGU in September 2001. Prior to coming to Harvard, he was the Professor of Psychiatric and Neurobehavioral Genetics in the Child Study Center at Yale University. Over the past 25 years, his research has focused primarily on the genetics of child neuropsychiatric disorders. Research under his direction has led to a better understanding of the inheritance of GTS, OCD and dyslexia. At the present time he leads an international consortium of investigators devoted to finding genes for GTS and related conditions.

Dr. Pauls is a Professor of Psychiatry (Genetics) and Director of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit in the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Prior to moving to the Harvard Medical School in September 2001, he was the Professor of Psychiatric and Neurobehavioral Genetics in the Child Study Center at Yale University. Dr. Pauls completed his Ph.D. in Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Minnesota with a focus on human population genetics. His Ph.D. research examined the genetics of mental retardation and giftedness. After completing his Ph.D. he was a post-doctoral fellow in psychiatric genetics in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa and psychiatric genetic epidemiology in the Department of Human Genetics at Yale School of Medicine.

Over the last 25 years, his research has focused on understanding the underlying genetic mechanisms important for the expression of human behavior. His primary goal has been to understand the etiologic mechanisms (both genetic and non-genetic) that underlie the manifestation of specific behaviors that begin in childhood and continue over the life course. His research has focused on four different developmental neuropsychiatric disorders: the Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), high functioning autism/Asperger's syndrome and specific reading disability. In the past decade, the approach has been to examine components of the clinical phenomenology of each of these conditions and their transmission within families.