J. Paul Taylor (physician)

J. Paul Taylor is an American physician scientist and research hospital director known for his contributions to the fields of neurogenetics, RNA biology, and neurological disease, including the role of biomolecular condensation in neurological diseases such as ALS.

Taylor is Scientific Director and Executive Vice President of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He holds the Edward F. Barry Endowed Chair in Cell and Molecular Biology and also serves as Chair of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology and Director of the St. Jude Pediatric Translational Neuroscience Initiative.

He is a fellow of the American Neurological Association and the Association of American Physicians, the winner of the 2020 Norman Saunders International Research Prize, and the winner of the 2020 Potamkin Prize. From 2015 to 2022 Taylor was an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Education
Taylor graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physiology from the University of California, Davis. He obtained his MD and PhD from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. He completed his medical internship and neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in neurogenetics at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the lab of Kenneth Fischbeck.

Career
Taylor joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2004 as Assistant Professor of Neurology, where he established a research program investigating the molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative disease. In 2008, Taylor moved to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as Associate Member in the Department of Developmental Neurobiology. In 2014, Taylor became the founding Chair of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. In 2015, Taylor was named an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a position he held until 2022 when he was named Scientific Director and Executive Vice President of St. Jude. Taylor is also the founding director of the St. Jude Pediatric Translational Neuroscience Initiative, a program that leverages the hospital's infrastructure in research and experimental therapeutics to develop cures for childhood neurological diseases.

Taylor's research program at St. Jude focuses on neurogenetics, the biology of RNA and RNA-binding proteins, and mechanisms of neurological disease, with particular interest in the role of biomolecular condensation in diseases such as ALS and frontotemporal dementia. He was named on the Clarivate list of Highly Cited Researchers in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.