Harman Brah, MD
Physician-scientist at UCLA and the West Los Angeles VA. I build and test clinical AI, work on psychedelic and schizophrenia trials, and run a computational drug discovery lab.
What I bring
Clinical AI, built and evaluated
Built an LLM tool that drafts inpatient psychiatry discharge summaries at the VA. Published on how LLMs fail atypical patients (Journal of Medical Ethics).
Clinical trials
Investigator on VA trials of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, psilocin for treatment-resistant depression, and new-mechanism drugs for schizophrenia.
Real-world data and drug safety
FAERS pharmacovigilance on GLP-1 drugs with antipsychotics, EHR analysis on MIMIC-IV, and a genetic-testing meta-analysis in Biological Psychiatry.
ML for drug discovery
Transformer models for fragment linking and AlphaFold-based design of bispecific T-cell engagers. Earlier work on ML355, now in development as CAD-1005.
Experience
Psychiatrist, Co-occurring Disorders
Addiction psychiatry for adults with co-occurring substance use and psychiatric disorders in a county public behavioral health system. Psychiatric evaluation and medication management with the clinic's nursing and psych tech team.
Psychiatry Resident Physician, Physician Scientist Track
Inpatient, emergency, consult-liaison and addiction psychiatry. Built an internal LLM tool that drafts inpatient discharge summaries for residents.
Resident Research Investigator
Trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, psilocin for treatment-resistant depression, and novel-mechanism schizophrenia therapeutics.
Principal Investigator, Brah Lab
Computational drug discovery and clinical informatics. 400+ student researchers mentored. Lab work has been presented at IEEE MIT URTC, NCUR and SCCUR.
Research Fellow
Led a multi-institutional meta-analysis of genetic testing yield in schizophrenia.
Research Fellow
Neuroinflammatory biomarkers and metabolic changes linking childhood trauma to conversion in clinical high-risk psychosis.
Graduate Research Fellow
β2-adrenergic receptor allosteric pharmacology.
Research Assistant
Optimized the 12-LOX inhibitor ML355, now CAD-1005, which completed Phase 2 and is headed to Phase 3.
Selected publications
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2025
The problem of atypicality in LLM-powered psychiatry
Journal of Medical Ethics -
2026
Clinical genetic testing in schizophrenia: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Biological Psychiatry 99(7):541–549Lead author -
2026Journal of CheminformaticsCo-senior author
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2026
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2024
The design of benzimidazole derivatives to bind to GDP-bound K-RAS for targeted cancer therapy
Journal of Emerging InvestigatorsSenior author -
2021Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry 46:116347
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2021ACS Chemical Biology 16(7):1232–1241
Under review and in progress
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2026
Antipsychotic and benzodiazepine use in Cluster B admissions: a retrospective analysis of MIMIC-IV
Journal of Psychiatric Research, under reviewCorresponding author -
2026
GLP-1 receptor agonists with antipsychotics in severe mental illness: a FAERS pharmacovigilance study
Poster, Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry 2026 · manuscript in preparationLead author -
2026
Probing the relationship between clozapine-induced myocarditis and HLA alleles
Journal of Molecular Modeling, under reviewCorresponding author -
2026
Computational analysis of GLP-1RA–VEGFR2 binding mechanisms in wet AMD
Manuscript in preparationSenior author -
2025ChemRxiv preprintSenior author
Talks and presentations
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2026
Inhaled 5-MeO-DMT for treatment-resistant depression: a critical appraisal of the GH001 Phase 2b trial
UCLA Psychiatry Journal Club -
2026
FragPredict: comparing molecular representations in transformer-based linker generation
Poster, IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference -
2026
Neurocognitive disorders after TBI: pharmacologic management
Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, West Los Angeles VA Medical Center -
2025
Diagnostic yield of clinical genetic testing in schizophrenia
Society of Biological Psychiatry Annual Meeting -
2024
Navigating ethical frontiers in chatbot-assisted psychiatry
Technology in Medicine Symposium, UC Irvine -
2024
LLM-powered psychiatry: from back to front
Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy, Caltech -
2024
Machine learning for fragment-based cancer drug discovery
Poster, IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference -
2022
Characterization of the β2-adrenergic receptor allosteric site
Poster, UC San Diego Research Symposium
Student research I've mentored
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2026
Dry-lab bispecific T-cell engager design for glioblastoma-associated immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome
Student researchers: Madhav Krishna and Rajalakshmi Sriram -
2026
Integrative machine learning frameworks for prediction and management of neuropsychiatric populations
Student researcher: Ayaan Bhattacharya -
2025
Computational analysis of GLP-1RA–VEGFR2 binding mechanisms in wet AMD
Student researcher: Sruti Vijay -
2024
Probing the relationship between clozapine-induced myocarditis and HLA alleles
Student researcher: Seona Sheth -
2024
Computational analysis of intracellular and extracellular structural modifications in CAR-T cell engineering for KRAS pathway inhibition
Student researcher: Nisarg Shah -
2024
Cation-π interactions between GLP-1RAs and GLP-1R may disrupt apoptotic pathways, potentially contributing to papillary thyroid carcinoma
Student researcher: Shree Ganiger -
2023
Analogs of irbesartan as GDP-bound K-RAS inhibitors for targeted cancer therapy
Student researcher: Gargi Sharma -
2023
Assessing eight docking softwares for accuracy and speed with a diverse panel of drugs
Student researcher: Aditya Narasimha
Education and credentials
Doctor of Medicine
BS Biochemistry, summa cum laude
- License
- California Physician & Surgeon, active
- DEA
- Schedules II–V
- Boards
- USMLE Steps 1, 2 CK and 3
- Languages
- English, Punjabi, Hindi