Dr. Alysson Muotri is a professor at the Departments of Pediatrics and Cellular & Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego. Dr. Muotri earned a Ph.D. in Genetics in 2001 from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He moved to the Salk Institute as Pew Latin America Fellow in 2002 for postdoctoral training. His research focuses on brain evolution and modeling neurological diseases using brain organoids. He has received several awards, including the prestigious NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, NARSAD, Emerald Foundation Young Investigator Award, Surugadai Award, Rock Star of Innovation, NIH EUREKA Award, two Telly Awards for Excellence in Science Communication among several others.