Huda Y. Zoghbi, M.D.

Huda Y. Zoghbi, M.D. is an internationally renowned neurogeneticist and the founding director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital. She is also an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor of Pediatrics, Neurology, Neuroscience and Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). In addition, Dr. Zoghbi is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a trustee of the American University of Beirut, Rice University, and The Rockefeller University.

Born and raised in Lebanon, Dr. Zoghbi received her undergraduate degree in biology from the American University of Beirut and began medical school there in 1975.  The civil war in Lebanon broke out during her first year of studies. After she spent a semester living in the basement of the university to stay safe, Dr. Zoghbi moved to the United States, where she transferred to Nashville’s Meharry Medical College. 

Dr. Zoghbi completed a pediatric residency and a residency in pediatric neurology at BCM in 1985. Seeing children with incurable, inherited neurological diseases and not being able to provide them with hope piqued her interest in research and led her to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular genetics under the mentorship of the preeminent geneticist Dr. Arthur Beaudet.  She joined the Baylor’s faculty as an assistant professor in 1988. Dr. Zoghbi’s research spans neurodevelopment to neurodegeneration, and has led to key discoveries in Spinocerebellar Ataxia type 1, Rett syndrome, Bipolar disorder and Alzheimer’s disease. She has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications in top-tier journals.

In 2010, Dr. Zoghbi founded the Duncan NRI at Texas Children’s Hospital to develop treatments for brain disorders, which impact one billion people, including 300 million children. Under her leadership, the NRI has grown to over 30 principal investigators and 300 research trainees with a track record of groundbreaking discoveries, including:

• 60+ genetic mutations that underlie neurological diseases—10% of all those known worldwide. 
• A master gene that holds the key not only to a rare pediatric neurological disorder, but also to adult-onset diseases like Parkinson’s.
• The use of an established cancer drug to treat forms of severe childhood epilepsy.
• A neural circuit in the brain that controls addiction and eating disorders.

Awards and Honors