About Us > Our People > Faculty & Scientists > Stephan Sanders, BMBS, PhD

Stephan Sanders, BMBS, PhD

Associate Faculty Member, NYGC Professor, Neurogenetics, University of Oxford; Associate Professor, University of California, San Francisco
Stephan Sanders headshot
Lab Groups & Research Areas Honors & Achievements
  • Leader of the Autism Sequencing Consortium, the BrainVar Project, and a SFARI autism sex-bias project
  • 2019 Theodore Reich Young Investigator Award by the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics (ISPG)
  • 2015 NARSAD Young Investigator Award by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation

Stephan Sanders is a Professor of Pediatric Neurogenetics in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Oxford and a member of faculty at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He trained as a pediatrician before undertaking a PhD and Postdoctoral studies in Genetics at Yale University. In 2014, he started his lab at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) before moving to Oxford in 2022.

Dr. Sanders’ research focuses on using gene discovery, functional genomics, and bioinformatics to understand the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders. His work has identified many genes that contribute to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and significantly advanced our understanding of the role of rare and de novo genetic variants in the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders. He has used these findings to elucidate insights into the cell types and biological processes that underlie ASD, and to investigate genotype-phenotype relationships, including autism sex bias.

Dr. Sanders is a leader of the Autism Sequencing Consortium, the BrainVar Project, and a SFARI autism sex-bias project. In 2019, he was awarded the Theodore Reich Young Investigator Award by the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics (ISPG) for his work on the genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders, especially Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation in 2015. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, which have been cited over 30,000 times (h-index 65, top 1% in the field based on Web of Science).

Decorative image color fade left Decorative image color fade right Decorative image color fade