Paul A. Northcott, PhD

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Memphis, United States

Paul A. Northcott, PhD, is an Associate Member in the Department of Developmental Neurobiology and Neurobiology and Brain Tumor Program at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. During his PhD and postdoctoral training, Paul made numerous impactful contributions to the medulloblastoma literature, including the original description of molecularly and clinically distinct WHO subgroups, consortia-level annotation of genomic and epigenomic landscapes, and the discovery of ‘enhancer hijacking’ as a novel mechanism of oncogene activation in brain tumors. He is an active Member of the Children’s Oncology Group, the American Association of Cancer Research, and the Society for Neuro-Oncology, and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for The Brain Tumor Charity. He has led several high-impact studies published in Nature, Nature Genetics, Cancer Cell, Lancet Oncology, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology, disclosing the molecular mechanisms underlying medulloblastoma pathogenesis, and establishing the importance of contextualizing clinical trial outcomes with biology. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards at both the trainee and principal investigator level, including The Sontag Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award, Pew-Stewart Scholar for Cancer Research, St. Baldrick’s Foundation Robert J. Arceci Innovation Award, and was an inaugural recipient of the AACR NextGen Grant for Transformative Cancer Research. The Northcott Lab uses a variety of multidimensional genomic and functional approaches to study the molecular basis of medulloblastoma initiation, maintenance, progression, and relapse. The overarching goal of these efforts is to enhance diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for affected children and their families.