David Nelson, PhD, is a professor of molecular and human genetics and the director of both the graduate program in cancer & cell biology and integrative molecular and biomedical sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. He is also a director of Baylor’s Michigan Emory Fragile X Research Center, an NIH-funded center aimed at understanding mechanisms whereby premutation-length CGG repeats cause neurodegenerative and ovarian disorders. The Nelson lab has been involved in research into the causes of and therapies for Fragile X syndrome since the late 1980s, contributing to the discovery of the repeat expansion mutation that results in the disorder and the gene that is affected. For over 30 years, the Nelson lab has worked to define both the characteristics of the unusual repeat expansion in the disease and the functions of FMR1, the gene that is downregulated in the disease.