Research interests
Background:
Mady Hornig, MD, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, is Director of Translational Research in the Center for Immunopathogenesis and Infectious Diseases at the Mailman School of Public Health. A physician-scientist, she is widely recognized for her work on the role of viral and immune factors in neurodevelopmental and other neuropsychiatric disorders, and the neuropharmacologic and neuroendocrine aspects of treatment resistant mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in adults.
Dr. Hornig received a BA as a College Scholar from Cornell University in 1978, where her honors work focused on "Biology, Law and Society"; an MA in Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of The New School for Social Research in 1983; and an MD from the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1988. Her postgraduate training included Residency in Psychiatry at the University of Vermont (1988-1992), during which she completed a clinical and research fellowship in neuropharmacology (1991-1992), and an NIMH National Research Science Award Postdoctoral Fellowship in Neuropsychopharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania (1992-1994). Her honors include the Society for Women Engineers and Mathematicians (1974); College Scholar, Cornell University (1974-1978); American Medical Association (AMA) Rock Sleyster Memorial Scholar (1987); Best Resident Teacher, University of Vermont College of Medicine (1989); Association for Academic Psychiatry/Mead Johnson Fellowship in Academic Psychiatry (1991); NARSAD Young Investigator (1993); NIH K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award (1998-2003); and an NIH Pediatric Research Loan Repayment Program Award (2002-2004).
Dr. Hornig’s translational research focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which infection, immune disturbances, and neurotoxins lead to neurodevelopmental damage or CNS dysfunction, contributing to neuropsychiatric conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obsessive compulsive disorders, and mood disorders. Her research program integrates data from animal models and epidemiologic studies, incorporating behavioral, neurochemical, neurostructural, molecular, immunologic and microbiologic perspectives. She serves as Director of Clinical Core for a large, international multicenter program, led by Dr. Ian Lipkin, that is evaluating the role of Borna disease virus in human neuropsychiatric diseases, and as co-PI for a study of measles virus sequences in bowel biopsies of children with autism.
