Craig Lowe

Assistant Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology

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.

Appointments and Affiliations

  • Assistant Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
  • Assistant Professor of Cell Biology
  • Member of the Duke Cancer Institute

Contact Information

  • Email Address: craig.lowe@duke.edu
  • Websites:

Education

  • Ph.D. University of California, Santa Cruz, 2010

Courses Taught

  • UPGEN 778C: University Program in Genetics and Genomics Biological Solutions Module Ill
  • UPGEN 778B: University Program in Genetics and Genomics Biological Solutions Module Il
  • UPGEN 778A: University Program in Genetics and Genomics Biological Solutions Module I

In the News

Representative Publications

  • Pollen, Alex A., Umut Kilik, Craig B. Lowe, and J Gray Camp. “Human-specific genetics: new tools to explore the molecular and cellular basis of human evolution.” Nat Rev Genet 24, no. 10 (October 2023): 687–711. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-022-00568-4.
  • Au, Eric H., Christiana Fauci, Yanting Luo, Riley J. Mangan, Daniel A. Snellings, Chelsea R. Shoben, Seth Weaver, Shae K. Simpson, and Craig B. Lowe. “Gonomics: uniting high performance and readability for genomics with Go.” Bioinformatics 39, no. 8 (August 1, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btad516.
  • Saelens, Joseph W., Mollie I. Sweeney, Gopinath Viswanathan, Ana María Xet-Mull, Kristen L. Jurcic Smith, Dana M. Sisk, Daniel D. Hu, et al. “An ancestral mycobacterial effector promotes dissemination of infection.” Cell 185, no. 24 (November 23, 2022): 4507-4525.e18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.019.
  • Mangan, Riley J., Fernando C. Alsina, Federica Mosti, Jesús Emiliano Sotelo-Fonseca, Daniel A. Snellings, Eric H. Au, Juliana Carvalho, et al. “Adaptive sequence divergence forged new neurodevelopmental enhancers in humans.” Cell 185, no. 24 (November 23, 2022): 4587-4603.e23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.016.
  • Wucherpfennig, Julia I., Timothy R. Howes, Jessica N. Au, Eric H. Au, Garrett A. Roberts Kingman, Shannon D. Brady, Amy L. Herbert, et al. “Evolution of stickleback spines through independent cis-regulatory changes at HOXDB.” Nat Ecol Evol 6, no. 10 (October 2022): 1537–52. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01855-3.