About the HEART-GeN group

Dr. Benjamin’s Bio

Born and raised in a large extended family from Indianapolis, Indiana, Dr. Kynon Jade Benjamin is proud to be the first doctor in his family. Dr. Benjamin earned his GED with the support of his mother before moving on to Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). At IUPUI, Dr. Benjamin completed his work-study placement in a neuroscience research laboratory, which started his scientific research journey. In his predoctoral studies, Dr. Benjamin designed and implemented drug-delivery and drug-development assays and developed bioinformatics pipelines for differential expression analysis in Angelman syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder. During his subsequent postdoctoral fellowship at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he developed computational pipelines for large-scale transcriptional (bulk and single-cell), genetic, and functional association analyses in postmortem brain tissue and cerebral and striatal brain organoids.

Throughout his research career, Dr. Benjamin’s experiences have reinforced the importance of supporting others and fostering collaborative environments. As such, he has worked to provide mentorship, serve as a role model, and advocate for opportunities for others.

Dr. Benjamin’s CV

Research program

We study how human genetic variation shapes RNA regulation and cellular states across brain development, aging, and disease, and which of these mechanisms can be tested experimentally. Our work connects three ideas: the regulatory mechanisms through which DNA variation acts (genetic ancestry, RNA splicing and isoform choice, gene expression, and DNA methylation); their biological consequences for cortical development, neuronal maturation, brain aging, schizophrenia, and neurodegeneration; and mechanistic validation and translation through interpretable genomic AI, experimental models, and ancestry-aware precision neuroscience.

To this end, we use and develop open-source computational tools and work with experimental collaborators who test our predictions in postmortem human brain tissue, cerebral organoids, and iPSC-derived models. We treat genetic ancestry as one dimension of human genomic variation, not a proxy for race, and we aim for discoveries that are biologically informative and generalizable across the populations they are meant to serve. Read more on our Research page.