Stewart Anderson serves as an associate chair for research in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Services at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). He is also professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and associate director of the Lifespan Brain Institute, a collaboration between CHOP and UPenn and dedicated to identifying the neuropathological antecedents of developmental neuropsychiatric disorders. He has a longstanding interest in the interface between basic science and clinical research, and his recent research has involved studying cerebral cortex development in relation to schizophrenia.

Anderson’s current research involves studying mitochondrial influences on brain development and synaptic activity. His perspective is that mitochondrial energetic defects are not so much the primary drivers of neuropsychiatric illness, but that they can strongly influence the penetrance and severity of intellectual disability, ASD and schizophrenia-related symptoms that are themselves driven by genetic influences on synaptic development and function. Since mitochondria energetics can be enhanced by diet, exercise and pharmacological interventions, this influence may be a relatively under-appreciated therapeutic opportunity.