NFXF Webinar Series

2025 NIH Fragile X Centers of Excellence

01 h 13 m

In our first webinar in the NFXF’s 2025 Webinar Series, we hear updates from each of the current NIH-funded Fragile X Centers of Excellence. Why is this year’s Advocacy Day especially important? Congress is gearing up to make crucial decisions about our nation’s priorities and how to fund them. The NIH is one of those federal funding bodies supporting Fragile X research for over two decades.

About the Webinar

With Drs. Peng Jin, Peter Todd, Emily Allen, Craig Erickson, and David Nelson
Learn more about the presenters

Every year in February, NFXF Advocates meet with their members of Congress and share their stories illustrating the ongoing importance of federal funding in advancing Fragile X research.

NFXF Executive Director Hilary Rosselot opens the webinar detailing the importance of federal funding and its impact on the Fragile X community. Specifically, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds the Centers for Collaborative Research in Fragile X and FMR1-related Conditions Program, with the first grant being awarded in 2003. The program aims to improve the diagnosis and treatment of FXS and other FMR1-related conditions.

Representatives from each NIH-funded Fragile X Centers of Excellence report on their progress, including preclinical (or non-human) models of Fragile X, potential treatments for FXS, FXTAS, and FXPOI, and currently enrolling research studies. These presenters are:

  • Dr. Peng Jin, Emory University
  • Dr. Peter Todd, University of Michigan
  • Dr. Emily Allen, Emory University
  • Dr. Craig Erickson, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Dr. David Nelson of the Baylor College of Medicine joined the presenters for a brief Q&A that ended the webinar on a hopeful note for the future of FX research and appreciation of the collaboration of our special and unique community.

Learn More About Advocacy and Its Impact on Funding for Fragile X Research

Fragile X needs continued NIH funding, and your members of Congress must hear from you directly because your voice matters! Let your representatives know how the indirect cost cuts and any additional proposed funding changes could impact you, your family, and the disability community.

Learn More

About the Presenters

Peng Jin headshot.

Peng Jin

Emory University
Professor, Department of Human Genetics

Peng Jin, PhD, received his molecular and developmental biology doctorate from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, University of Cincinnati, and postdoctoral training at Emory University. At Emory, Dr. Jin is interested in the roles of noncoding RNAs and epigenetic modulation in neural development and brain disorders. Dr. Jin received the Beckman Young Investigator Award, Basil O’Connor Scholar Research Award, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Neuroscience, and NARSAD Independent Investigator Award. Learn more about the Peng Jin Lab at Emory University.

Peter Todd headshot.

Peter K. Todd

University of Michigan Medical School
Professor, Department of Neurology

Peter K. Todd, MD, PhD, is the Bucky and Patti Harris Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a clinician, Dr. Todd co-directs Michigan University’s Multidisciplinary Ataxia Clinic, where he sees patients with FXTAS (Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome), and the Fragile X Syndrome Clinic,  where he sees adult patients with Fragile X syndrome. He  also serves as director of the Clinical Neurogenetics Research Program, which aims to improve research and care for patients with inherited neurological disorders.

As a physician-scientist, the Peter Todd Lab studies the mechanisms by which nucleotide repeat expansions cause neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders with a long-term goal of developing novel therapeutics for currently untreatable conditions. His lab has published extensively on Fragile X-associated disorders, such as Fragile X syndrome and FXTAS, as well as C9orf72 repeat expansions that cause ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and frontotemporal dementia.

In the past decade, Dr. Todd has given over 80 invited presentations across the world and published over 50 papers on his research.

Emily Allen, PhD, headshot.

Emily Allen

Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Human Services
Associate Professor

Emily Allen, PhD, graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in biology and Emory University with a PhD in genetics. She has worked on studies of Fragile X-associated disorders at Emory University with Dr. Stephanie Sherman since the early 2000s. Her primary research focus has been on disorders and characteristics associated with the Fragile X premutation, such as Fragile X-associated primary ovarian insufficiency (FXPOI) and Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS).

Craig Erickson

Craig A. Erickson

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Professor of Psychiatry

Craig A. Erickson, MD, is a professor of Psychiatry at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine-Affiliated. Dr. Erickson leads a neurodevelopmental clinical and research group focused on improving clinical care through research discovery. He is the director of the Cincinnati Fragile X Research and Treatment Center, one of the largest such programs in the world. He serves as the chair of the Clinical Trials Committee organized by the National Fragile X Foundation and is a leader in translational medicine efforts in Fragile X syndrome, autism, and related disorders. Additionally, he is the director of research in the Division of Psychiatry at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. 

David Nelson headshot

David Nelson

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston
Professor, Molecular and Human Genetics

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.