Xin Jin, an associate professor of neuroscience at Scripps Research, has been named the 2026 Peter Gruss Young Investigator Award recipient by the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI).

Established to honor the legacy of Peter Gruss, former president of the Max Planck Society and a founding figure of MPFI, the award is presented biennially to an early-career neuroscientist whose work exemplifies collaboration, creativity and curiosity-driven discovery. The award is made possible through the philanthropic support of Rocky (Raquel) Rodriguez, chair of the Florida offices of the law firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, who funds the prize in tribute to Gruss’s enduring influence on the field. As the fourth recipient of this honor, Jin joins previous awardees Professor Michael Yartsev of the University of California, Berkeley, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator; Professor Gloria Choi of MIT; and Professor Viviana Gradinaru of Caltech, also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

“The field of nominees was incredibly impressive; however, Jin stood out among the nominees for her creative and multidisciplinary integration of methodologies to make tremendous progress toward understanding principles of brain development and function,” says David Fitzpatrick, Scientific Director and CEO of MPFI and a member of the selection committee. “She is well on her way to becoming a leader in the neuroscience field.”

Jin’s research tackles one of neuroscience’s most persistent challenges: understanding how genetic risk variants contribute to developmental brain diseases and disorders. To do so, her lab has developed and refined high-throughput, high-content in vivo screening technologies that allow researchers to examine many genetic variants at once, across multiple cell types and tissues, during critical windows of brain development, homeostasis and aging. This approach represents a significant leap forward from traditional methods that assess mutations one at a time. By mapping how diverse genes converge on shared molecular pathways, her work is laying the groundwork for a more unified understanding of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions.

Nobel laureate Ardem Patapoutian, who nominated Jin for the award, noted that her findings have, for the first time, demonstrated the possibility of identifying the limited subset of signaling pathways on which heterogeneous genetic mutations act—a long-sought goal in the field.

“Receiving this award is a tremendous honor,” says Jin. “Peter Gruss was not only a visionary leader but a developmental biologist whose work has been a source of inspiration throughout my career. To be recognized in his name means a great deal.” Jin is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Freeman Hrabowski Scholar, a member of the Dorris Neuroscience Center and an adjunct professor of cognitive science at UC San Diego. Her previous honors include the Pew Biomedical Scholar Award, the McKnight Scholar Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Early Career Investigator Award from the International Society of Autism Research, and recognition as one of MIT Technology Review’s “35 Innovators Under 35.”