Rate My Professor Abraam Yakoub

Abraam Yakoub, Ph.D., Pharm.D., is Lecturer on Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2015 and subsequently conducted research as a lab member in the Sudhof Laboratory at Stanford Medicine from 2015 to 2016. Prior to joining Harvard, Yakoub served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, where he established a prominent research program focused on innovative biomedical models and therapeutic strategies.

Yakoub's research specializations include the development and characterization of human cerebral organoids to model neural circuitry and higher-order brain complexity, as detailed in his publication 'Development and characterization of human cerebral organoids: an optimized approach' (2018, Cell Transplantation) and 'Analysis of Synapses in Cerebral Organoids' (2019). He has advanced Parkinson's disease modeling through protocols for generating induced neurons, published in 2024 (STAR Protocols), and contributed to studies on stable, neuron-specific gene expression in the mouse brain (2024) and gene delivery techniques for disease modeling (2024, Neural Regeneration Research). His work also encompasses virology and infectious diseases, including cellular models of SARS-CoV-2 infection and investigations into viral impacts on neurological function. In 2022, Yakoub received the prestigious NIH Director's Transformative Research Award, a five-year $4.5 million grant for a project on COVID-19 research deemed exceptionally novel and creative by NIH Director Francis Collins. This funding highlighted his impact on pushing boundaries in biomedical research. Yakoub has presented his findings at international conferences such as Cell & Gene Therapy and BioProcess International, and served as a guest lecturer at institutions including the Faculty of Pharmacy at MSA University. His contributions have elevated research profiles at multiple institutions through significant federal funding and publications advancing neurobiology, organoid technology, and antiviral strategies.