Additional Titles & Roles
- Co-Director, Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center (IDDRC)
- Contact PI, Washington University Scalable Mouse Assay Center (WU-SMAC)
- Professor of Psychiatry
Education & Training
- Ph.D.: University of California, 2005
- B.S.: Truman State University (Formerly Northeast Missouri State University), 1999
Major Awards
- Outstanding Faculty Member, DBBS Graduate Program, 2024
- Mentor of the Year, Washington University Neuroscience Program, 2020
- NARSAD Indepedent Investigator Award, 2016
- Travel Fellow, Winter Conference on Brain Research, 2015
- Highlighted as one of Genome Technology’s ‘Up and Coming Investigators’, 2012
Research Interests
My research focuses on trying to understand the genetic and cellular underpinnings of both normal behavior and psychiatric disorders, primarily autism. We combine data from human genetics studies with high througphput cell-type specific gene expression profiling to identify genes and circuits that may contribute to mental disorders, which we then test with mouse models. We are particularly focused on neuromodulatory systems and glia.
Recent Publications
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SMURF: soft-segmentation for single-cell reconstruction and topological analysis of spatial transcriptomic data
Guo, J., Sarafinovska, S., Hagenson, R. A., Valentine, M. C., Chen, D. Y., McCoy IV, W. H., Dougherty, J. D., Mitra, R. D. & Muegge, B. D., Dec 2026, In: Nature communications. 17, 1, 7990.
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Antecedent enhancer activity predicts future susceptibility to seizures in mice
Boros, B. D., Gachechiladze, M. A., Guo, J., Galloway, D. A., Mueller, S. M., Shabsovich, M., Yen, A., Chen, X., Cammack, A. J., Shen, T., Mitra, R. D., Dougherty, J. D. & Miller, T. M., Dec 2026, In: Nature communications. 17, 1, 300.
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Inducible Calling Cards: Developing Mouse Reagents for Experimentally Controlled Transposon Insertion In Vivo
Sarafinovska, S., Venkatesan, A., Akinwe, T. M., Chamessian, A., Recio, P., Chen, X., Payne, M., Creed, M. C., Mitra, R. D. & Dougherty, J. D., Jun 2026, In: eNeuro. 13, 6, ENEURO.0411-25.2026.
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Challenges and opportunities in adapting high-throughput functional assays for in vivo neuroscience
Selmanovic, D. & Dougherty, J. D., Mar 2026, In: Trends in Neurosciences. 49, 3, p. 217-232 16 p.
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Time trends in the male to female ratio for autism incidence: population based, prospectively collected, birth cohort study
Fyfe, C., Winell, H., Dougherty, J., Gutmann, D. H., Kolevzon, A., Marrus, N., Tedroff, K., Turner, T. N., Weiss, L. A., Yip, B. H. K., Yin, W. & Sandin, S., Feb 4 2026, In: BMJ. 392, e084164.