https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6838-1976
Overview
Craig Lowe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. His research interests are in understanding how traits and characteristics of humans, and other vertebrates, are encoded in their genomes. He is especially focused on adaptations and disease susceptibilities that are unique to humans. To address these questions, Craig uses both computational and experimental approaches. Craig's recent research has been on differences in how genes are regulated between species, or between different individuals within a species, and how this causes traits to differ. All students in Craig's lab are exposed to an interdisciplinary environment; current lab members have backgrounds in mathematics, computer science, neuroscience, developmental biology, and genetics. Each year Craig teaches one or two courses on rotating topics of: ancient DNA, ethical issues in genomics, and software development for genetic analyses.
Current Duke Appointments & Affiliations
Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
·
2026 - Present
Molecular Genetics and Microbiology,
Basic Science Departments
Assistant Professor of Cell Biology
·
2022 - Present
Cell Biology,
Basic Science Departments
Member of the Duke Cancer Institute
·
2019 - Present
Duke Cancer Institute,
Institutes and Centers
Recent Scholarly Works
Segmentally Duplicated Regulatory Elements Undergo Human-Specific Rewiring.
Journal article Mol Biol Evol · July 2, 2026 Gene regulatory innovation underlies many phenotypic transitions. Transposable elements are an established mechanism for creating families of cis-acting elements with shared sequence features and the potential to establish co-regulatory networks. To unders ... Full text Link to item CiteEditorial overview: Evolutionary genetics (2025): mapping the molecular basis of phenotypic divergence.
Journal article Curr Opin Genet Dev · June 2026 Full text Link to item CiteRapid and repeated evolution of myosin copy number in threespine stickleback.
Journal article Curr Biol · April 6, 2026 Copy-number variants at genomic loci evolve at a high rate, are linked to many different diseases, and play a role in adaptive evolution in humans and other organisms. Here, we show that stickleback fish from freshwater environments have rapidly and repeat ... Full text Link to item CiteRecent Grants
Cell and Molecular Biology Training Program
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEMentor · Awarded by National Institute of General Medical Sciences · 2026 - 2031Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Training Grant
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEMentor · Awarded by National Institutes of Health · 2026 - 2031Genetics and Genomics Training Grant
Inst. Training Prgm or CMECo Investigator · Awarded by National Institutes of Health · 2026 - 2031View All Grants
Education
University of California, Santa Cruz ·
2010
Ph.D.