David Altshuler

chief academic officer, Broad Institute

David received his B.S. in 1986 from MIT, Ph.D. in 1993 from Harvard University, and M.D. in 1994 from Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship, residency and clinical fellowship training at Endocrinologist and human geneticist David Altshuler is a founding member of the Broad Institute and serves as director of the Broad’s Program in Medical and Population Genetics, as well as the Institute’s first Deputy Director and Chief Academic Officer. David is one of the world’s leading scientists in the study of human genetic variation and its application to disease, using tools and information from the Human Genome Project. He has been a lead investigator in The SNP Consortium, the International HapMap Project, and the 1,000 Genomes Project - public-private partnerships that have created public maps of human genome sequence variation as a foundation for disease research. His work has contributed to the understanding of gene variants that influence the risk of common conditions, including type 2 diabetes, blood cholesterol, prostate cancer, systemic lupus erythematosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. These studies provide new clues about the mechanisms that cause these diseases, and more generally, provide a blueprint for analyzing the role of genetic variations in human health. David is also a professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School, and in the department of molecular biology at the Center for Human Genetic Research, as well as the Diabetes Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.