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Christopher Ahern is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and the Iowa Neuroscience Institute. As a researcher, he oversees an NIH-funded research program and is the Director of the NIH/NINDS Facility for Atomic Mutagenesis, a research community resource for the high-resolution study of neurological ion channels and receptors. The principal scientific focus of his research laboratory has been on advancing the basis for bioelectrical signaling in the excitable cells of nerve and muscle.

Prior to the University of Iowa, he received training in Chemistry and Molecular Biology (BS UW-Madison), Membrane Biophysics (Ph.D. UW-Madison), and Chemical Biology (Caltech and Thomas Jefferson Medical College). In 2008, he started his independent lab at the University of British Columbia where he was a Michael Smith Research Scholar and the Heart and Stroke Foundation MacDonald Scholar. Since 2012, at the University of Iowa, he has developed methods that use transfer RNAs to advance the molecular basis for electrical signaling and for the repair of premature termination codons, with a focus on neuronal sodium channels.