Herb Lachman is a physician-scientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, where he holds joint appointments in the departments of psychiatry, medicine, genetics, and neuroscience. Although clinically trained in internal medicine and hematology, he has been actively involved in studying the molecular and genetic basis of psychiatric disorders, autism spectrum disorders, and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Dr. Lachman uses induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to model these conditions in the lab. The Lachman lab has produced iPSC lines from patients with Jansen de Vries Syndrome, Lowe Syndrome, 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, and KDM5C-associated intellectual disability. They also use CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to introduce patient-specific mutations into iPSCs derived from typically developing controls, which is very useful for certain types of experiments. iPSCs are subsequently differentiated into various neuronal cell types and microglia and analyzed using state-of-the art molecular studies including bulk and single cell RNA sequencing, and proteomics. The Lachman lab also studies gene-environment interactions related to the development of schizophrenia and autism. Recently, Dr. Lachman has developed a strong interest in pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS) and is studying the effects of PANS candidate genes on microglia function.
