Ali Jawaid
Affiliation
Translational Neuropsychiatry Research
Group (TREND Lab), Lukasiewicz Research Network- PORT Polish Center for
Technology Development, Wroclaw, Poland
Titre
Immunometabolic basis of neuropsychiatric disorders: Across the lifespan and across generations
Abstract
Childhood trauma is a significant risk factor for a wide range of psychiatric and physical health disorders in adulthood. Emerging evidence suggests that the consequences of such early-life adversity may not be limited to a single generation but can also be transmitted biologically to subsequent generations. In this study, we investigate the molecular underpinnings of the long-term effects and intergenerational transmission of trauma, with a particular focus on small non-coding RNAs. We analyze serum, sperm, and breast milk samples from multiple trauma-exposed human cohorts, including Pakistani children and adult men with histories of complex childhood trauma, Polish mothers who experienced adverse childhood events, and Bosnian individuals who lived through the genocide during their formative years. To complement these human data, we employ a well-established mouse model of post-natal trauma based on unpredictable maternal separation and stress. Our cross-species analysis reveals that lipid-related circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are significantly altered in response to early-life trauma and appear to play a critical role in mediating the transmission of trauma-related effects across generations. These findings suggest that specific miRNAs may serve as potential biomarkers for trauma exposure and transmission, offering novel insights into biological mechanisms of epigenetic vulnerability, as well as potential avenues for targeted therapeutic interventions.
Biosketch
Dr. Ali Jawaid, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist with training in both clinical and basic neuroscience. He is a Principal Research Investigator at the Research Network Łukasiewicz – PORT Polish Center for Technology Development in Wroclaw, Poland.
He completed his medical studies from Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan, and followed it up with fellowship in Neuropsychiatry from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA. He then proceeded to complete an MD-PhD in Neuroscience from Switzerland (simultaneous PhD degrees awarded by UZH/ETH International Program in Neuroscience and UZH MD-PhD program in 2016). This was followed by a postdoc in Neuroepigenetic at ETH Zurich. Since 2020, Dr. Jawaid has been the head of Laboratory for Translational Research in Neuropsychiatric Disorders (TREND Lab) working on the immunometabolic and epigenetic basis of neuropsychiatric disorders across generations. He has authored 75+ publications, including original studies in Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, Nature Communications, EMBO Journal, and Translational Psychiatry and has a current H-index of 31.
Dr. Ali Jawaid is also is a scholar of the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence, a platform of 30 most outstanding early to mid-career neuroscience prinicial investigators acrsso Europe. He is a fiction author, poet, and virtual-reality enthusiast outside of scientific work.