Paul Jenkins is an assistant professor of pharmacology and psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School. He received his bachelor of science in general biology from the University of Michigan in 2001 and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Michigan in 2010 under the mentorship of Jeffrey Martens. He continued his training as a postdoctoral fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University under the mentorship of Vann Bennett from 2010 to 2015.

Jenkins’ current research is focused on understanding the cellular and molecular underpinnings of complex psychiatric diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders, including bipolar disorder and autism spectrum disorders. In particular, his lab is interested in the effects of human variants in ankyrin genes on neuronal cell biology and function. To address this goal, his laboratory utilizes cellular and molecular biological techniques, mouse models, confocal microscopy, electrophysiology and human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neuronal models.

Jenkins is the lead investigator on a federally funded grant from the National Institutes of Health and has independent investigator awards from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, One Mind and SFARI. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers and has served on national and international grant review panels.