W. Lee Kraus, Ph.D.

W. Lee Kraus, Ph.D. is Professor and Director of the Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences, an endowed basic science research center at UT Southwestern with a research focus on signaling, gene regulation, and genomics in reproduction, development, and cancer. He also holds the Cecil H. and Ida Green Distinguished Chair in Reproductive Biology Sciences. As director for the Green Center, Dr. Kraus is responsible for developing and maintaining the research environment in the Center, hiring and mentoring new faculty, and developing and supporting the laboratory training programs in the Center.

Dr. Kraus also serves in multiple other roles at UT Southwestern that leverage his scientific knowledge and experience to broadly support the basic and translational research enterprises of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (as Vice Chair for Laboratory Research), the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center (as Assistant Director for Basic Research), and the University (as the inaugural Assistant Dean for Research Development).

Prior to his move to UT Southwestern in 2010, he was on the faculty in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and the Department of Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine for 10 years, where he moved through the ranks from assistant professor to full professor.

Dr. Kraus’s research interests include signal regulated transcription, chromatin and gene regulation, nuclear receptors, PARPs, and NAD+ metabolism and signaling. He has been active in these fields as a scientist, conference organizer, journal editor, editorial board member, NIH grant reviewer, frequent manuscript reviewer, teacher, and consultant. Dr. Kraus has published over 190 original research articles in peer-reviewed journals, many in leading science journals, with an h-index of 86 (Google Scholar 2026).

During his independent scientific career, Dr. Kraus has been supported by a Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences/Reproductive Biology from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, as well as grants from the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, the Endocrine Society, and the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Kraus has been an active and successful mentor, as of 2026 having trained 23 doctoral students, 38 postdocs, and 17 clinical fellows. Almost all of his former trainees have gone on to faculty positions in universities or private research institutes, research scientist positions in the biotech and pharma industries, or administrative positions in academia.

Dr. Kraus is also active in the biotech and pharma industries. He is a founder of Ribon Therapeutics, Inc. (2015-2023) and ARase Therapeutics, Inc. (2020-present) - two oncology therapeutics companies in the PARP and ADP-ribosylation space. He also serves on the scientific advisory boards of other biotech start-up companies.

Dr. Kraus earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in 1989. He then completed graduate research on the regulation of steroid hormone receptor activity in the laboratory of Benita S. Katzenellenbogen, Ph.D., at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and received his Ph.D. in 1994. Dr. Kraus did his postdoctoral research on the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation with chromatin in the laboratory of Jim Kadonaga, Ph.D., at the University of California, San Diego. During his postdoctoral work, Dr. Kraus was supported by fellowships from the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society, California Division.

Dr. Kraus has won numerous research and teaching awards, including the Endocrine Society’s Richard E. Weitzman Memorial Award for research excellence (2007), the Endocrine Society’s Ernst Oppenheimer Award for research excellence (2014), the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2023), the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Young Faculty Teaching Excellence Award (2004), and the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award (2008). He also delivered the keynote lecture at the 2026 FASEB Summer Research Conference on NAD+ Metabolism and Signaling: “Compartmentalized NAD+ Synthesis and Sensing in the Control of PARP Activity and Biological Outcomes.”