Christophe Herman

Christophe Herman, Ph.D., is a Professor at Baylor College of Medicine, holding multiple academic positions including roles in Molecular and Human Genetics, Molecular Virology and Microbiology, and the Program in Integrative Molecular and Biomedical Sciences. He also serves as a Faculty Senator and a Member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research focuses on epigenetic inheritance, transcription errors, and molecular noise's role in genetic network dysregulation, particularly in bistable switches like the lactose operon and lambda phage systems. Dr. Herman’s work explores how transient errors in transcription, translation, or protein folding can lead to heritable phenotypic changes in genetically identical cells.

Education: He earned a Ph.D. from Université Libre de Bruxelles (1996) and completed postdoctoral fellowships at MIT (1996) and UCSF (2000). Awards include the Michael E. DeBakey Excellence in Research Award (2009) and the NIH Director's Pioneer Award (2019–2024).

His research has been funded by NIH grants investigating molecular noise, transcription errors, and their impact on heritable phenotypic diversity. Key findings include the role of transcription fidelity factors like GreA in DNA repair and the influence of microbial genetic composition on host longevity. Dr. Herman’s lab integrates experimental and theoretical approaches to understand fundamental mechanisms underlying epigenetic stability and its implications for diseases like cancer and neurodegeneration.