Dr. Xuyu Qian, newly appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has published groundbreaking research in Nature (2025) mapping human brain development at unprecedented single-cell resolution. His innovative use of spatial transcriptomics to analyze over 18 million cells reveals how the human cerebral cortex forms during fetal development. Combined with his widely-adopted brain organoid protocols (cited over 2,000 times), which helped establish the link between Zika virus and brain malformations, Dr. Qian's human-centric approach promises new therapeutic strategies for neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder and malformations of cortical development.