Hongjie Yuan, MD, PhD
Dr. Hongjie Yuan is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA, and Deputy Director of the Center for Functional Evaluation of Rare Variants (CFERV). His current research is focused on genetic variations in human glutamate receptors associated with neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, including intractable seizures, epileptic encephalopathy, autism, intellectual disability, movement disorders, and schizophrenia.
Dr. Yuan utilizes a multidisciplinary approach (from in vitro assays to in vivo transgenic animal models) to translate basic research involving human glutamate receptor genetic variations toward understanding the functional consequences of the mutations in glutamate receptor genes in healthy individuals and pediatric neurological patients. Dr. Yuan’s research program has provided not only new insights into receptor function and genetic risk, but also catalyzed the development of mechanistic hypotheses underlying a subset of neurological diseases (e.g. genetic epilepsies). These efforts help to both build new diagnostic criteria that incorporate function and expand our understanding of the range of functional variation in the healthy population, allow patient stratification, enable classification of variants of unknown significance, and lead to better understanding of the effectiveness of existing medications, as well as potentially improved clinical care. Dr. Yuan’s research program also explores novel approaches to clinical treatment of a subset of neurodevelopmental disorders.
Dr. Yuan received Medical Degree and Master Degree in neuroscience in China, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Akita University. He completed his postdoctoral training with Dr. Steve Traynelis at Emory University. Dr. Yuan was promoted to Instructor in 2012, Assistant Professor in 2015, and Associate Professor in 2021. He was awarded a Young Investigator Award of American Epilepsy Society (AES) in 2013, was selected by Millipub Club publication (faculty with papers having >1000 citations) in 2017, and was awarded Emory SOM Imagine, Innovate, and Impact (I3) Nexus Research Award in 2023. He is a co-author on over 80 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and invited commentaries (Google Scholar H-index of 40 with over 10,300 citations; https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-6y32eQAAAAJ&hl=en). His research is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD/NIH), National Institute on Aging (NIA/NIH), GRIN Therapeutics, and SAGE Therapeutics.