He is the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases[1] and director of the Institute for Cell Engineering[2] at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
In 1992, Dawson completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Neurosciences under Solomon H. Snyder at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
In 1996, he became an associate professor in the Departments of Neurology and Neuroscience and Graduate Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, as well as the co-director of the Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorder Center.
Still at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dawson achieved a professor position in the Departments of Neurology and Neuroscience in 2000.
In 2004 he was named the inaugural Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases in the departments of Neurology and Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The research performed in their laboratories studies the molecular mechanisms that lead to neuronal cell death in neurodegenerative diseases, stroke and trauma.
[29] In screens for neuroprotective proteins, they discovered an endogenous inhibitor of parthanatos, Iduna (RNF146), a first in class PAR-dependent E3 ligase.
[33] They also showed that mutations in Thorase leading to gain or loss of function result in lethal developmental disorders in children.
[41] They discovered the parkin substrate, PARIS, which plays a key pathogenic role in PD pathogenesis by inhibiting mitochondrial biogenesis.