Christopher Austin, MD
Senior Advisor to the Director, Translational Research
National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH

Christopher Austin is Director of the NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Senior Advisor to the Director for Translational Research at the National Human Genome Research Institute. The NCGC is a high-throughput screening and chemistry center that develops small molecule probes for biology and starting points for the development of new drugs for rare and orphan diseases. In addition, the NCGC develops new paradigms to increase the efficiency and genome-wide reach of assay, screening, chemistry, and informatics technologies.

In his role as Senior Advisor for Translational Research, he was a principal architect of several large initiatives to translate the human genome sequence into biological and therapeutic insights, including the NIH Molecular Libraries Initiative, a multifaceted program of small molecule technologies in the public sector; the Knockout Mouse Project, which is producing knockout mice for all mouse genes; and a project to develop an in-depth transcriptome map of the mouse. Prior to his time at NIH, Christopher spent seven years at Merck, where he directed research programs genomics-based target discovery, pharmacogenomics, and DNA microarray technologies, with a focus on neuropsychiatric diseases. Dr. Austin received his BA. from Princeton and MD from Harvard. He did clinical training in neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a fellowship in developmental genetics at Harvard.