Christopher P. Austin, MD

Dr. Austin earned an AB from Princeton University and an MD from Harvard University.

Dr. Austin is Director of Pre-Clinical Innovation for the National Center for Translational Sciences (NCATS). Previously, Dr. Austin founded the National Center for Chemical Genomics (NCGC), building it into one of the leading centers for high-throughput screening, chemical probe development, and chemical genomics-the use of small-molecule compounds to understand the organization and function of genes and genomes.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is a new center at the National Institutes of Health. Currently, many costly, time-consuming bottlenecks exist in the translational pipeline. Working in partnership with the public and private sectors, NCATS will develop innovative ways to reduce, remove or bypass these bottlenecks. This will speed the delivery of new drugs, diagnostics and medical devices to patients.

A developmental neurogeneticist by training, Dr. Austin came to NHGRI in 2002 from the private sector, where his work focused on genome-based discovery of novel targets and drugs. He was the Senior Advisor for Translational Research, responsible for initiation of programs to determine gene function and therapeutic potential across the genome; in this role, he initiated the Knockout Mouse Project (KOMP), a large-scale transcriptome study of mouse tissues, and the Molecular Libraries Roadmap Initiative, of which NCGC was a part.