Dr. Joshua Levin is a senior group leader and research scientist in the Broad Institute of MIT, Harvard’s Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research and in the Broad’s Klarman Cell Observatory. In his research, he uses RNA profiling approaches to improve our understanding of brain function as it relates to disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease (PD). During his time at the Broad Institute, Dr. Levin has developed and comprehensively evaluated an extensive portfolio of RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) methods, including targeted, strand-specific, total, low-input, 5’ end, and single-cell RNA-Seq protocols. His group performed single-cell RNA-Seq in a seminal study on heterogeneity in immune cells at the single-cell level. More recently, Dr. Levin has been instrumental in neuroscience studies – transcriptional profiling of samples from people with autism and single-cell RNA-Seq of human brain organoids and mouse thalamic reticular nucleus, a structure that regulates many behavioral processes.