J. Paul Taylor

J. Paul Taylor is an American physician scientist and research hospital director known for his contributions to the fields of neurogenetics, RNA biology, and neurological disease, including the role of biomolecular condensation in neurological diseases such as ALS.

Taylor is Scientific Director and Executive Vice President of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He holds the Edward F. Barry Endowed Chair in Cell and Molecular Biology and also serves as Chair of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology and Director of the St. Jude Pediatric Translational Neuroscience Initiative.

He is a fellow of the American Neurological Association and the Association of American Physicians, the winner of the 2020 Norman Saunders International Research Prize, and the winner of the 2020 Potamkin Prize. Taylor was an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 2015 until becoming St. Jude Scientific Director. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2025.

Education Taylor graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physiology from the University of California, Davis. He obtained his MD and PhD from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. He completed his medical internship and neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in neurogenetics at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the lab of Kenneth Fischbeck. In 2014, Taylor became the founding Chair of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology.

Selected research papers