Adrian R. Krainer

Adrian R Krainer

Adrian R. Krainer
Ph.D.
Professor of Molecular Genetics and Program Chair of Cancer & Molecular Biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
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Dr. Adrian Krainer is the St Giles Professor of Molecular Genetics and Program Chair of Cancer & Molecular Biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which he joined in 1986. He received a B.A. in Biochemistry from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Harvard University. His laboratory studies pre-mRNA splicing regulation, and is also engaged in developing targeted therapies to correct or modulate alternative splicing in genetic diseases and cancer.

Together with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, they developed nusinersen (Spinraza), an antisense-oligonucleotide drug that corrects defective splicing of the SMN2 gene and is the first FDA/EMA-approved therapy for spinal muscular atrophy, an inherited motor-neuron disease. Prof. Krainer is a Pew Biomedical Scholar, a MERIT-award recipient from the NIH, a past President of the RNA Society, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Medicine. He has authored ~200 publications and 18 patents.