Graham Erwin, PhD

Graham Erwin, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. He is a molecular, chemical, and genome biologist elucidating the functional role of tandem repeat (TR) DNA sequences. This work is guiding the design of new therapeutics and diagnostics for human disease. The lab is currently supported by an NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) and a CPRIT Faculty Recruitment Award. 

He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Professor Aseem Ansari, where he was a co-inventor of synthetic transcription factors to treat devastating neurodegenerative diseases. An analog of the prototype molecule, Syn-TEF1, is currently in clinical trials. He has published first-author papers in high-impact journals including PNAS and Science.

Prior to joining Baylor College of Medicine, he was a Stanford Cancer Institute Postdoctoral Fellow with Professor Michael Snyder in the Department of Genetics at Stanford University. 

For the past four years, Graham has organized the Stanford Genetics Conference on Structural Variants and DNA Repeats (SVAR), a conference that he created. SVAR attracts more than 1,000 researchers each year to learn about the latest advances at the final frontier of the human genome.

As a first-generation college student, Graham is an advocate for first-generation college students from underrepresented backgrounds. He is a guest lecturer in Wellness Education at Stanford.