Quick Facts
Biography
Christopher Gregg is a Canadian researcher, futurist, and entrepreneur. He is a professor in the Departments of Neurobiology & Anatomy and Human Genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, director of the Gregg Lab.
Career
Gregg was an undergraduate at the University of Lethbridge where he received a B.Sc. in biochemistry before receiving his PhD from the University of Calgary in Canada in neural stem cell biology. While working with Samuel Weiss at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, he received the University of Calgary Chancellor's Medal for recognition of his work on stem cells and regenerative therapies. This work led to his first biotech company; Stem Cell Therapeutics.
In 2006, Gregg moved to Harvard University as a postdoc, where he received a Human Frontiers Fellowship, working with Catherine Dulac in the Dulac Lab, developing RNASeq methods to distinguish the expression of paternal and maternal alleles in the brain.
In 2011, Gregg joined the University of Utah Departments of Neurobiology & Human Genetics, where he founded the Gregg Lab. He was awarded tenure in 2019. The Gregg Lab played an early role in the development of sequencing technologies used to study allele-specific expression effects using RNA-seq. This work revealed genes that exhibit a maternal or paternal allele expression bias and uncovered forms of genomic imprinting and parental influence on brain gene expression, significantly shaping offspring behavior.
In 2019, Gregg co-founded Storyline Health Inc., an A.I. company using human behavior to discover and deliver biomarkers of health and disease.
In 2020, Gregg co-founded the Uncharted Cancer Patient Masterclass, which is a free resource for patients and providers that is focused on sharing information about how lessons from evolution and ecology can improve cancer care.
In 2024, Gregg co-founded Primordial AI Inc., an A.I. company using comparative genomics and evolutionary models to develop improved drugs and treatments.
Research
Gregg's research interest lies at the intersection of genomics and behavior, genetic and epigenetic mechanisms in the brain that regulate motivated behaviors. Research using mouse models has shown that gene expression directly affects behavior and that A.I. can be used to find behavioral biomarkers.
Awards and recognition
- In 2010, he was awarded the Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology.
- In 2010, his work was chosen as one of the "Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year" by the National Institutes of Mental Health.
- In 2012, he was chosen to be a New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator.