His research focuses primarily on the genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and neurodegeneration, including his genome-wide association analyses in the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC) which resulted in a first-author paper that was the most cited Alzheimer’s study of 2011.

Dr. Naj is also one of several Penn co-founders and organizers of the annual Symposium on Advances in Genetic Epidemiology and Statistics (SAGES), promoting the development of methods to analyze genomic datasets. He has recently expanded his research portfolio to include studies examining genetic loci contributing to multiple neurodegenerative diseases and phenotypes including AD, Parkinson’s disease, and progressive supranuclear palsy, among others, aspiring to identify key genetic contributors to the pathologies underlying neurodegeneration.