Erwin Friedrich Wagner (born 25 November 1950) is an Austrian biochemist known for his research on the molecular basis of cancer and associated conditions such as inflammation and cachexia.

[4] In 1979, Erwin Wagner began his postdoctoral research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, United States in the laboratory of Beatrice Mintz as a Max Kade Fellow.

In 1983, Wagner obtained a lecture qualification (Habilitation) by Innsbruck University and became a Group Leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.

In 1988, Wagner was appointed senior scientist at the then newly founded Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria.

He investigates the functions of transcription factor complexes regulating cell proliferation, differentiation and oncogenesis, as well as the cross-talk between organs, in both mice models and humans.