Dennis Lal, PhD

Dr. Dennis Lal is an Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Neurogenetics at UTHealth Houston. He earned his B.Sc. in Biochemistry, M.Sc. in Genetics, and Ph.D. in Neurogenetics from the University of Cologne, Germany. His postdoctoral training in quantitative epilepsy genetics was conducted at the University of Cologne and the Broad Institute of Harvard, MIT, and Massachusetts General Hospital. At the Cleveland Clinic, he focused on physician education and research in clinical neurogenetics, biomedical data science, and genomic software development.

Dr. Lal’s research explores how genomic alterations lead to brain disorders. His lab aims to understand disease mechanisms, predict prognosis, and improve genetic variant interpretation through collaborative projects with neurologists, biologists, bioinformaticians, statisticians, and software developers. He has published in prestigious journals like PNAS, Nature Genetics, Cell, and Lancet Neurology.

Dr. Lal has received numerous honors and participated in large-scale genomics consortia. He advises several rare genetic epilepsy family foundations and leads bioinformatic analysis groups in major epilepsy genomic projects. He is a member of the American Society for Human Genetics and the International League Against Epilepsy Genetics Consortium.