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Gallaudet University
Derek Braun
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BiographyDerek C. Braun, Ph.D. is a Professor at Gallaudet University.
As a graduate student, Dr. Braun was a NIH National Service Research Award (NRSA) fellow. His graduate research at the University of Maryland was on the genetics of lipooligosaccharide antigenic variation in the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. After graduation from the University of Maryland, Dr. Braun worked at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, from 2002 through 2006, where he studied signal transduction pathways important in cancer and pain. Dr. Braun was awarded a provisional patent for developing a fluorescent recombinant biotechnology tool for high-throughput screening of potential anticancer drugs.
In 2006, Dr. Braun designed and began directing the Molecular Genetics Laboratory, Gallaudet's first biological research laboratory. Undergraduate students and summer interns perform research in the laboratory alongside deaf faculty. As a result of working with students in his lab, Dr. Braun, along with Cara Gormally and M. Diane Clark, began a fruitful collaboration identifying the variables important for effective mentoring of deaf students in undergraduate research experiences.
His current research interest is in the population genetics of connexin deafness. Connexin deafness is a uniquely common form of genetic deafness, and is prevalent all over the world, implying that there must be an underlying phenomenon responsible for this prevalence.
As one of the only Deaf geneticists in the world, Dr. Braun was interviewed and featured in "Scientists with disabilities: Access in all areas" in Nature, "Science in Sign Language" in ASBMB Today, and in All in the Mind, a radio show by Australian Broadcasting Corp. He also presented at TEDxMidAtlantic 2013.