Eric N. Olson

Eric Olson is the founding Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He also directs the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine and the Wellstone Center for Muscular Dystrophy Research at UT Southwestern. He holds the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair, the Pogue Chair Distinguished Chair in Cardiac Birth Defects and the Annie and Willie Nelson Professorship in Stem Cell Research.

Eric Olson and his trainees discovered many of the key genes and mechanisms responsible for development and disease of the heart and other muscles. His most recent work has provided new strategies for correction of genetic disorders of muscle and the heart using CRISPR gene editing.

Dr. Olson is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received numerous additional honors for his work. He has co-founded multiple biotechnology companies to design new therapies for heart and muscle disease.