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2026 Research Days Keynote Speaker

Youssef A. Kousa, MS, DO, PhD

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Dr. Kousa is a prenatal and neonatal neurologist and scientist who has been at the forefront of developing synergistic teams in studying emerging pathogens and translating these insights into therapeutic targets. Dr. Kousa is the Founding Director of the Prenatal Infection and Neurodevelopmental Genetics (PING) Consortium. Formed nearly a decade ago, the PING consortium is an international translational research effort designed to identify developmental pathways leading to brain injury, create diagnostic platforms to improve clinical care, and advance therapeutic protocols to protect brain development. With investments by NIH and CDC, the PING Consortium includes six countries, 19 cities, 23 centers, 35 researchers, and over 10,000 mother/infant participants with bio-banked sample. The team is systematically gathering and maintaining volumes of clinical, laboratory, imaging, developmental, and genomic data. The datasets are currently being used to identify biological mechanisms of viral infections and brain injury. Dr. Kousa is also the founding principal investigator of the K-Labs research program, a discovery oriented basic research program using cell, tissue culture, and animal systems to study how viruses infect and kill rapidly proliferating neural cells. Expertise in the lab includes neurology, pediatrics, neurobiology, cancer biology, virology, bioinformatics, genomics, immunology, vaccine development and RNA therapeutics.

Keynote Address

Dr. Kousa’s keynote will trace his journey from first-generation American to physician-scientist, highlighting how curiosity, persistence, and service shaped a career at the intersection of medicine, genetics, and child neurology. He is a two-time Kean University alumnus, earning his B.S. in Biology in 2005 and M.S. in Biotechnology in 2007, before completing the DO-PhD Physician-Scientist Training Program at Michigan State University and residency training at Children’s National Hospital. Today, Dr. Kousa serves as a prenatal and neonatal neurologist at Children’s National and directs both the Zika Genetics Consortium and the K-Labs Research program, where his work is focused on understanding prenatal viral brain injury and advancing the next phase of research toward treatments for mothers and babies.

More About Dr. Youssef Kousa