Research

Founded in 2010, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital is one of the few research institutes in the world dedicated to solving pediatric and adult neurological, neurodegenerative, and neuropsychiatric disorders. Under the leadership of Drs. Huda Zoghbi, Joshua Shulman and Sameer Sheth, an incredible array of diversely-trained faculty come together to bridge the critical gap between basic research and clinical care. With over 30 faculty members who are world-class neuroscientists, clinicians, surgeons, computational biologists and chemists, the Duncan NRI deeply values and fosters a culture of multidisciplinary collaborations with the ultimate goal of developing new and improved treatments for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Since inception, we have trained more than 600 talented scientists. These researchers — all affiliated with the Baylor College of Medicine, have made several breakthroughs unparalleled for an institute in existence for just over
a decade, resulting in:

• More than 1450 publications in top-tier scientific journals.
• The discovery of 85 new disease genes or disorders.
• Eight clinical trials that are active or under development and successful FDA approval for a drug to treat a type of catastrophic childhood epilepsy, with initial preclinical studies conducted at the Duncan NRI.