Anna Duncan, MD, MHS

Dr. Duncan is an Attending Neonatologist at Mass General Brigham for Children and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on understanding genetic causes of early onset neurodevelopmental disorders and is supported by an NINDS-K08 Career Development Award and a Shore Faculty Development Award. In her basic science research, Dr. Duncan models rare genetic etiologies of neurodevelopmental disorders in zebrafish in order to understand their impact on the developing brain. The aims of her K08 award include understanding the function of the DEAD-box gene EIF4A2 and interrogating its role in GABA interneuron development. She has utilized the CRISPR/Cas9 system to generate the first eif4a2 loss of function model in zebrafish and has shown that the larvae are hyperexcitable and have a reduction in GABA interneurons.

Clinically, Dr. Duncan is interested in improving the identification of early onset neurogenetic disorders in the NICU. She co-leads a clinical research study entitled “Assessing diagnostic yield of whole genome sequencing in newborns with neonatal encephalopathy.” This work is support by a BWH-MGH Newborn Medicine Collaborative grant.

As a physician-scientist and a neonatologist, her long-term goal is to improve the neurodevelopmental outcomes of infants and children. She aims to do this by identifying genetic causes of neurodevelopmental disorders in the NICU, modeling identified genetic variants in zebrafish to better understand their pathophysiology and identifying targets for therapy. This path will both combine and build upon her interests in neonatal care, developmental neurobiology and genetics in a bassinet to bench approach.