# Janet Song Assistant Professor ![Janet Song](/sites/g/files/omnuum5476/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2025-07/Janet_Song.jpeg?itok=xDTvZaTC) location\_on Human Evolutionary Biology, Peabody Museum, 5th Floor, 11 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138 email laptop\_windows [Lab website](https://janetsonglab.com/) laptop\_windows [Publications](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Song+JHT%5BAuthor%5D) There are millions of sequence variants between humans and other species. The Song lab aims to identify and characterize the variants that contributed to human-specific traits, with a particular focus on the evolution of the human brain. In particular, we study how human-specific sequence variants result in neural specializations that ultimately impact cognition, social behavior, and motor control. We are also interested in how human-specific changes to the brain impact neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric diseases in modern humans. Our lab integrates a wide range of experimental and computational approaches from diverse fields, including evolutionary biology, molecular biology, neuroscience, developmental biology, anthropology, and computer science. Three main areas of research are: 1\) What genetic variants contribute to human-specific traits? We use comparative methods to identify which of variants might be functional, screen candidates using high-throughput functional genomics approaches, and recreate individual changes in primate cells and in mouse models for further study. 2\) How does human evolution affect human disease? Research by us and others suggests that genomic regions with signatures of selection in humans may be preferentially implicated in diseases that affect human-evolved traits like cognition and social behavior. We are interested in further exploring this connection and applying what we learn about human neural specializations to relevant diseases like autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. 3\) Tool development to accelerate the study of human evolution. We have previously generated human-chimpanzee tetraploid stem cell lines as a genetic model where the genomes of both species are in the same cellular environment and different types of gene regulation can be disentangled. We are continuing to develop new ways to use this model to study human evolution. We are also developing approaches to facilitate in vivo genomic screens and training machine learning models to predict the effects of human-specific genetic variants. - ## Location [Harvard University](/location/harvard-university) - ## Research Interests [Development & Plasticity](/research-interests/development-plasticity) [Gene Expression](/research-interests/gene-expression) - ## Research Techniques [Computational](/research-technique/computational) [Molecular Biological and Genetic](/research-technique/molecular-biological-and-genetic) [Neuronal Tissue and Cell Culture](/research-technique/neuronal-tissue-and-cell-culture) - ## People [Faculty](/people/faculty)