Contact Info
Name: Richard M. Myers, PhD
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 256-327-0431
Name: Amelia Denslow, Executive Assistant
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 256-327-0432
Location: 601 Genome Way, Huntsville, AL 35806
Richard M. Myers, PhD
Genomic and genetic analysis of human traits and diseases
Richard M. Myers, PhD, joined the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in 2008 as President and Science Director and was named M. A. Loya Chair in Genomics in 2020. He supplies the strategic oversight for the research enterprise at the Institute including sustaining a large, active laboratory. Myers brings 38 years of experience in genetics and genomics to his position.
Myers received his BS in biochemistry from The University of Alabama in 1976 and his PhD in biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in the lab of Robert Tjian in 1982. He completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard University in the lab of Tom Maniatis, and then joined the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco, Medical Center in 1985. He moved to Stanford University School of Medicine in 1993, where he served as professor and chair in the department of genetics. Under Myers’ direction, the Stanford Human Genome Center with the Joint Genome Institute contributed more than 10 percent of the data in the public Human Genome Project’s efforts to sequence the human genome.
The Myers Lab, in collaborative relationships with other researchers at HudsonAlpha and elsewhere, studies the human genome with the goal of understanding how allelic variation and gene expression changes contribute to human traits, including diseases, behaviors and other phenotypes. His group uses high-throughput genomic methods – including DNA sequencing, genotyping, chromatin immunoprecipitation, mRNA expression profiling, transcriptional promoter and DNA methylation measurements – as well as computational and statistical tools to identify, characterize and understand the functional elements encoded in our genomes and how they work together at the molecular level in normal and pathological conditions. The lab sequences whole genomes, whole exomes and targeted regions of the genome, as well as in functional genomics experiments, with ultrahigh-throughput DNA sequencing technologies to study clinical and basic biological problems. Researchers in the Myers Lab integrate these functional genomics, epigenetic and genetic data to understand how genomes are involved in brain disorders, ALS, cancer, children born with developmental disorders, autoimmune diseases and other traits.
1982-1985 Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Harvard University with Dr. Tom Maniatis
1982 PhD in Biochemistry, University of California, Berkeley
1977-1982 Graduate Student, Department of Biochemistry, University of California, Berkeley, with Dr. Robert Tjian
1976 BS in Biochemistry, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
1972-1976 Undergraduate Student, Department of Biology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, research with Dr. Clifford Hand and Dr. John Hardman
2020 – M. A. Loya Chair in Genomics
2008-present President, Science Director and Faculty Investigator, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, Huntsville, Alabama
2008-present Adjunct Faculty Member, Department of Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center
2008-present Adjunct Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama in Huntsville
2002-2008 Stanford W. Ascherman Professor and Chairman, Department of Genetics and Director, Stanford Human Genome Center, Stanford University School of Medicine
1996-2002 Professor and Co-Chair of Genetics and Director, Stanford Human Genome Center, Stanford University School of Medicine
1993 – 1996 Associate Professor of Genetics and Director, Stanford Human Genome Center, Stanford University School of Medicine
1990-1993 Associate Professor of Physiology and Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Director, Human Genome Center, University of California, San Francisco
1985-1990 Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco
2020 Wright A. Gardner Award, Alabama Academy of Science
2011 AAAS Fellow, The American Association for the Advancement of Science
2009 Leadership Alabama Inductee, Class 20
2005 Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, University of Alabama
2003 Blount Initiative Award, University of Alabama
2002 Pritzker Foundation Award, University of Michigan
2002 Darden Lecture Award, University of Alabama
1986-2003 Wills Foundation Award, UCSF/Stanford
1987-1990 Searle Scholar, UCSF
1988 Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award, UCSF
1984-1985 Leukemia Society of America Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship, Harvard
1982-1984 Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Fund Fellowship, Harvard
1980-1981 Honor Students’ Society, Berkeley
1979-1980 Regents Fellowship, UC Berkeley
1977-1978 Abraham Rosenberg and Kaiser Fellowships, UC Berkeley
1975 Phi Beta Kappa, University of Alabama
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