Graham Pavitt is a Professor within Faculty of Biology Medicine and Health (FBMH). He obtained an Honours degree in Microbiology and Virology from The University of Warwick (1988) and his D.Phil in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford (1992) studying gene expression mechanisms under the direction of Prof. Chris Higgins. Graham undertook postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda USA in Dr Alan Hinnebusch's laboratory, where he developed his interests in translational control. He was funded by a post-doctoral fellowship from the European Molecular Biology organization (EMBO) and then a John Fogerty International Fellowship.

In 1998, Graham returned to the UK with a Career Development Award from the Medical Research Council. He set up his laboratory at the University of Dundee, and in 2000 moved south to Manchester with a University Lectureship within the Biomolecular Sciences Department at UMIST. Following the merger of UMIST and the Victoria University of Manchester in 2004 Graham joined the Faculty of Life Sciences (FLS). He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2005, Reader in 2009 and Professor in 2013. FLS merged with Medicine to become FBMH in August 2016.

Graham has built his research group with funding from BBSRC, The Wellcome Trust, the European Leukodystrophy Association and the EU. His work focusses on understanding mechanisms and regulation of gene expression at the translation step - where mRNA is decoded into protein.

Graham has co-organised several national conferences on translation (1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2018) and yeast (2001, 2015) and Co-arranged the 2020 Cold Spring Harbor 'Translational Control' meeting that was held virtually because of the Covid-19 pandemic. He has served on the Biochemical Society 'Genes' theme panel (2003-2006) and was a member of the Biochemical Journal Editorial Board (2004-2012). Graham has been awarded two University Distinguished Achievement Awards: Researcher of the Year in 2011 and Teacher of the Year in 2014.