Randall Peterson

Dean, College of Pharmacy
Utah University

Randall T. Peterson, PhD is a chemical biologist whose research utilizes high-throughput screening technologies to discover new drug candidates for cardiovascular and nervous system disorders. Unlike conventional drug discovery programs that utilize simplified, in vitro assays, the Peterson lab screens using living zebrafish, ensuring that the drug candidates discovered are active in vivo. Several of the compounds discovered by the Peterson laboratory have become widely used research tools or preclinical drug candidates.

Dr. Peterson received his PhD from Harvard University where he studied as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Stuart Schreiber. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Mark Fishman at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Peterson spent 14 years as a faculty member at Harvard University where he was the Charles Addison and Elizabeth Ann Sanders Chair in Basic Science at Harvard Medical School, Scientific Director of the MGH Cardiovascular Research Center, and Senior Associate Member of the Broad Institute. In 2017 he moved to the University of Utah as L.S. Skaggs Presidential Endowed Professor and Dean of the College of Pharmacy.