Michael Weinstein

Michael Weinstein, Ph.D., was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Los Angeles and outside Washington D.C. He earned a B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at UCLA in 2005 and a Ph.D. in Human Genetics at UCLA in 2011. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel H. Cohn studying the genetic causes and molecular biology of skeletal dysplasias. His primary wet-lab research is focused on understanding and modeling the pathology of skeletal disorders caused by dominant mutations in TRPV4 including autosomal-dominant brachyolmia, spondylometaphyseal dysplasia Kozlowski-type (SMDK), and metatropic dysplasia. His primary informatics project is finding new genetic variants causing brachyolmia (short spine) and brachyolmia-like disorders. While his current project is focused on developmental pathology and genetics, he also has extensive experience studying cardiovascular and metabolic disease as well as experience in cancer biology and infectious disease. One of his focuses with the Collaboratory is teaching computer programming and developing new applications to make exome and other biological analysis easier and more efficient (these programs can often be found at his github). When not working on these projects, he can often be found studying Filipino martial arts at the Wooden Center.