Claudia Kleinman, PhD

• Scientific Director, Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics & Mental Health
• Professor in the Department of Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, at McGill University
• Principal Investigator at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital
• Associate Member of the McGill Centre for Translational Research in Cancer at the Segal Cancer Centre

Prof. Claudia Kleinman is an interdisciplinary researcher who combines molecular biology, computer science and statistics to uncover the molecular mechanisms driving disease. She is a Professor in the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University, a Principal Investigator at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, and an Associate Member of the McGill Centre for Translational Research in Cancer.Since 2014, she has been an active member and Principal Investigator at the LudmerCenter. She served as a scientific co-director for the Bioinformatics and Statistical Genetics research theme. In February 2026, Prof. Kleinman was appointed to the position of Scientific Director of the Ludmer Centre, where she now leads its scientific vision and strategy.

Her research lab applies genome-wide technologies and data science to define the genomic and epigenomic landscapes of cells and chart the origins of disease. She focuses on pediatric brain tumors, other high-fatality cancers, and neurodevelopmental disorders; areas where, despite intensive research, outcomes for patients have not improved for decades. Her team has developed an atlas of brain development at a single-cell resolution by cataloguing cell populations across the brain, their dynamics over time, and their distinct cellular states. With this atlas as a reference, they have uncovered the origins of pediatric brain tumors (Cancer Res 2025, Nat Genet 2022, Cell 2020, Nat Genet 2019), identified a mechanism for histone-driven neurodevelopmental disease (Cell 2023) and revealed how sex-related developmental differences can drive lethal tumors in male infants (Nature 2026). For her work mapping human brain development at the single-cell level to define the origin of childhood brain tumors, Prof. Kleinman was awarded the Bernard and Francine Dorval Prize. Her current projects continue to unravel how complex genetic and epigenetic interactions drive specific diseases.

• Visit Google Scholar for a list of publications.
• Visit Github for a list of computational resources.