Sergiu P. Pașca is a physician-scientist at Stanford University whose laboratory studies the principles of human nervous system development and the mechanisms that lead to neurological and psychiatric disease.

Born and raised in Romania, Pașca trained as a medical doctor and began his research studying the biological basis of autism. After work at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, he moved to Stanford for postdoctoral training, where he developed some of the early patient-specific stem cell models of neuropsychiatric disease, including neurons derived from individuals with Timothy syndrome.

At Stanford, his laboratory developed methods to capture increasingly complex features of human neural development experimentally. His group introduced instructive signals to generate regionalized neural organoids and pioneered assembloids, a modular approach for combining neural regions and cell types to study migration, connectivity and circuit formation. The laboratory has reconstructed forebrain, cortico-striatal, cortico-motor, thalamocortical, somatosensory and spinal circuits and has used these models to study the intrinsic timing of human neural maturation.

Pașca’s group also developed approaches for transplanting human cortical organoids into the developing brain, where human neurons can mature and integrate into functional circuits. More recently, the laboratory introduced developmental xenocortication, extending this strategy to investigate human cortical development and disease in vivo.

These experimental systems are used to investigate the mechanisms of neuropsychiatric disease, including autism, epilepsy, schizophrenia and genetic syndromes. In Timothy syndrome, work beginning with patient-derived neurons led to an antisense oligonucleotide strategy that targets the disease-causing CACNA1C transcript and rescues molecular, cellular and developmental abnormalities in human neural models. This program is now advancing toward clinical translation .

The organoid and assembloid approaches developed by the laboratory are now used by hundreds of groups worldwide. Pașca has also contributed to building the field through international training courses, scientific meetings and collaborative efforts to establish nomenclature, experimental standards and ethical frameworks for neural organoid and assembloid research.

Director of the Human Brain Organogenesis Program at the Stanford Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute

Member, Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute

Affiliate member, Stanford Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute

Faculty Fellow of the Stanford ChEM-H Institute

Member, Stanford Bio-X

Member, Child Health Research Institute

Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark Prize, Oxford University (2026)

NIH Method to Extend Research Time (MERIT) Award (2025)

Schaller Prize for Translational Neuroscience (2024)

ISSCR Momentum Award, International Society for Stem Cell Research (2024)

Doctor Honoris Causa (D.H.C.), Hatieganu Medical School (2023)

Knight of the Order of Merit, The Chancery of Orders (2023)

Sumitomo/Sunovion Prize, International College of Neuropsychopharmacology (2023)

CZ Biohub Investigator, BioHub (2022-2027)

Blavatnik Award Finalist, Blavatnik Foundation (2022)

IBRO-Kemali International Prize in Neuroscience (2022)

​TED speaker (2022)

Judson Daland Prize, American Society of Philosophy (2021)

Altman Award for Developmental Neuroscience, Japanese Neuroscience Society (2021)

Schizophrenia Basic Science Award, Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) (2021)

Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year Prize, Falling Walls, Germany (2020)

​C.J. Herrick Award in Neuroanatomy, American Association of Anatomy (2020)

Nature Medicine’s Featured Physician-Scientists, Nature Medicine (2019)

Daniel E. Efron Award, ACNP (2018)

Günter Blobel Early Career Award, ASCB (2018)

Vilcek Award for Creative Biomedical Promise (2018)

​A.E. Bennett Award for Biological Psychiatry (2018)

NYSCF Roberston Stem Cell Investigator (2018-2022)

Jordi Folch-Pi Award for Neurochemistry (2017)

NARSAD Independent Investigator Award (2017)

NIMH Director's BRAINS Award, NIMH (2015)

Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Faculty Award (2015)

MQ Fellow Award for Transforming Mental Health  (2014)

NARSAD Young Investigator Award, BBRF (2013)

​Grand Prize Best Romanian Student Abroad (2013)

Sammy Kuo Award, Best Postdoctoral publication in Neuroscience at Stanford University (2012)

Best Postdoctoral Research Award at Stanford (2012)

Tashia & John Morgridge Endowed Fellow (2010)

IBRO Outstanding Research Fellow (2009)

Postdoctoral, Stanford University School of Medicine, California, Neuroscience (2013)

Medical Doctor, Hatieganu School of Medicine, Romania, (2007)