Jeffrey Gruen, MD

Our focus is on the genetic basis for how we process oral and written language, how processing affects acquisition of language and information in children and adults, and shapes the evolution of languages among worldwide populations. To accomplish these goals we identify the genes and pathways critical for reading and speech and study their effects in longitudinal studies of typically developing children, through differences in connectivity between language centers in the brain, and their roles in the development of human brain neurons. Our approach is multidisciplinary, grounded in psychology, education, genetics, biostatistics, informatics, stem cell biology, and brain imaging. We conduct clinical trials on the genetic basis for response-to-intervention for children who struggle with reading and language in typical U.S. urban schools through serial psychometric testing, functional imaging, and whole genome sequencing. And we study the effects of language gene variants on the development of human brain cells beginning with progenitor cells and ending at mature neurons. Our mission is to understand how our genes modify how we process oral and written language to acquire and optimally apply knowledge in the classroom and throughout life.

Dr. Gruen came to Yale in 1981 for internship and residency in Pediatrics, after receiving his BS and MD degrees at Tulane University. He stayed at Yale for fellowship in Neonatology while also training in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics. Dr. Gruen formally joined the Yale Medical School faculty in 1988. By 2000, the focus of his lab turned to mapping and identifying the reading disability (dyslexia) gene locus on chromosome 6 (DYX2). These studies led to the identification of DCDC2, a dyslexia gene that was cited by the journal Science as the 5th top breakthrough of 2005. Currently, Dr. Gruen is professor of Pediatrics and Genetics, and faculty in the Investigative Medicine Program, the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Program, the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, and the Yale Educational Studies Program. He is the director for the new Yale Program for Learning Disability Research. Over his three decades of teaching and research at Yale he has mentored over 30 predoctoral students and postdoctoral fellows into successful careers in academia and industry.