Eric Lander
Encyclopedia
Eric Steven Lander is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), a member of the Whitehead Institute
, and director of the Broad Institute
of MIT and Harvard who has devoted his career toward realizing the promise of the human genome
for medicine. He is co-chair of U.S. President Barack Obama
's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
and an International Mathematical Olympiad
Silver Medalist for the United States
, graduating from high school in 1974. He then attended Princeton University
, where he graduated in 1978 as valedictorian. At the age of seventeen, he wrote a paper on quasiperfect number
s for which he won the Westinghouse Prize. He wrote his doctorate on symmetric design
s at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, under the supervision of Peter Cameron
. As a mathematician he studied combinatorics and applications of representation theory
to coding theory
. He enjoyed mathematics but did not wish to spend his life in such a "monastic career." Unsure of what to do next, he took up a job teaching managerial economics
at Harvard Business School
; he also began to write a book on information theory
. At the suggestion of his brother, Arthur Lander
, he started to look at neurobiology "because there's a lot of information in the brain." In order to understand mathematical neurobiology, he felt he had to study cellular neurobiology; this in turn led to studying microbiology and continued down to the level of genetics. "When I finally feel I have learned genetics, I should get back to these other problems. But I'm still trying to get the genetics right".
His studies introduced him to David Botstein, a geneticist working at MIT. Botstein was working on a way to unravel how subtle differences in complex genetic systems can become disorders like cancer, diabetes, schizophrenia, and even obesity. Lander then joined Whitehead Institute
(1986) and later joined MIT as a geneticist. In 1987, he was given the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. In 1990 he founded the WICGR (Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research). WICGR became one of the world's leading centers of genome research, and under Lander's leadership, it has made great progress in developing new methods of analysing mammalian genomes. The Whitehead Institute has also made important breakthroughs in applying this information to the study of human variation and particularly the study of medical genetics. The WICGR formed the basis for the foundation of the Broad Institute
, a transformation in which Lander was instrumental.
In December 2008, he was named, along with Harold E. Varmus
, one of the co-chairs of the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the Obama administration.
Lander is also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival
's Advisory Board.
(HGP), the publicly funded effort that intended to publish the information it obtained so the public could use it freely and without restrictions. This was a collaborative effort involving many research groups from countries all over the world. The second effort was undertaken by Celera Genomics
who intended to patent
the information obtained and charge subscriptions for use of the sequence data (Celera has since abandoned this policy and has donated large amounts of sequence information for free public use). The HGP was established first but moved slowly in the early phases of research as the role of the Department of Energy
was unclear and sequencing technology was in its infancy. Upon the entrance of Celera into the race to discover the genome, the pressure was on the HGP to establish as much of the genome in the public domain as possible. This was a change for the HGP, because many scientists at the time wanted a more complete copy of the genome. Along with other members of the HGP, Lander pushed for quicker discovery so that genes would not be discovered by Celera first.
The public draft of the human genome was published in 2001 in the journal Nature
. The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Center for Genome Research, is listed first (the order was according to total genomic sequence contributed) and Lander is the first author named.
The WICGR has also made a leading contribution to the sequencing of the mouse genome. Aside from academic interest this is an important step in fully understanding the molecular biology of mice which are often used as model organisms in studies of everything from human diseases to embryonic development. Increased understanding of mice will thus facilitate many areas of research. The WICGR has also sequenced the genomes of Ciona savignyi, the pufferfish
, the filamentous
fungus Neurospora crassa
and multiple relatives of Saccharomyces cerevisiae
, one of the most studied yeast
s. The Ciona savignyi genome provides a good system for exploring the evolutionary origins of all vertebrate
s. Pufferfish have smaller sized genomes compared to other vertebrates; as a result their genomes are "mini" models for vertebrates. The sequencing of the yeasts related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae will ease the identification of key gene regulatory elements some of which may be common to all eukaryote
s (including both plant and animal kingdoms).
, a collaboration between MIT, Harvard, the Whitehead institute and affiliated hospitals. Its goal is "to create tools for genome medicine and make them broadly available to the scientific community; to apply these tools to propel the understanding and treatment of disease". To this end they are studying the variation in the human genome and have led an international effort which has assembled a library of 2.1 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) these act as markers or signposts in the genome allowing the identification of disease susceptibility genes. They hope to construct a map of the human genome using blocks of these SNP called Linkage disequilibrium or LD. This map will be of significant help in medical genetics. It will allow researchers to link a given condition to a given gene or set of genes using the LD as a marker. This will allow for improved diagnostic procedures. Lander and his colleagues are hoping the LD map will allow them to test the Common Disease-Common Variant hypothesis which states that many common diseases may be caused by a small number of common alleles, for example 50% of the variance in susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease is explained by the common allele ApoE4. Lander's group have recently discovered an important association which accounts for a large proportion of population risk for adult onset diabetes.
Lander's most important work may be his development of a molecular taxonomy for cancers. The cancers are grouped according to gene expression and information like their response to chemotherapy is collected for each group. The division of cancers into homogeneous subgroups will allow increased understanding of the molecular origins of these cancers and aid the design of more effective therapies. They have also identified a new type of leukemia called MLL and have identified a gene which may serve as a target for a new drug.
In addition to his research, he has for several years co-taught MIT's required undergraduate introductory biology course (7.012) with Robert Weinberg
.
and attended the Spanish 2010 Bilderberg conference at the Hotel Dolce in Sitges
, Spain
.
's 100 most influential people of our time (2004) for his work on the HGP. Lander has also appeared in numerous PBS documentaries about genetics. He was listed at #2 on the MIT150
list of the top 150 innovators and ideas from MIT.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT), a member of the Whitehead Institute
Whitehead Institute
Founded in 1982, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research and teaching institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA....
, and director of the Broad Institute
Broad Institute
The Broad Institute is a genomic medicine research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Although it is independently governed and supported as a 501 nonprofit research organization, the institute is formally affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard...
of MIT and Harvard who has devoted his career toward realizing the promise of the human genome
Human genome
The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens, which is stored on 23 chromosome pairs plus the small mitochondrial DNA. 22 of the 23 chromosomes are autosomal chromosome pairs, while the remaining pair is sex-determining...
for medicine. He is co-chair of U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Background
He was captain of the math team at Stuyvesant High SchoolStuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
and an International Mathematical Olympiad
International Mathematical Olympiad
The International Mathematical Olympiad is an annual six-problem, 42-point mathematical olympiad for pre-collegiate students and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except in 1980...
Silver Medalist for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, graduating from high school in 1974. He then attended Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, where he graduated in 1978 as valedictorian. At the age of seventeen, he wrote a paper on quasiperfect number
Quasiperfect number
In mathematics, a quasiperfect number is a theoretical natural number n for which the sum of all its divisors is equal to 2n + 1...
s for which he won the Westinghouse Prize. He wrote his doctorate on symmetric design
Symmetric design
In combinatorial mathematics, a symmetric design is a block design with equal numbers of points and blocks. Thus, it has the fewest possible blocks given the number of points . They are also known as projective designs....
s at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, under the supervision of Peter Cameron
Peter Cameron (mathematician)
Peter Jephson Cameron is an Australian mathematician who works ingroup theory, combinatorics, coding theory, and model theory. He is currently Professor of Mathematics at Queen Mary, University of London....
. As a mathematician he studied combinatorics and applications of representation theory
Representation theory
Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by representing their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studiesmodules over these abstract algebraic structures...
to coding theory
Coding theory
Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their fitness for a specific application. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error-correction and more recently also for network coding...
. He enjoyed mathematics but did not wish to spend his life in such a "monastic career." Unsure of what to do next, he took up a job teaching managerial economics
Managerial economics
Managerial economics as defined by Edwin Mansfield is "concerned with application of economic concepts and economic analysis to the problems of formulating rational managerial decision." It is sometimes referred to as business economics and is a branch of economics that applies microeconomic...
at Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
; he also began to write a book on information theory
Information theory
Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...
. At the suggestion of his brother, Arthur Lander
Arthur Lander
Arthur D. Lander, M.D., Ph.D. is Director of the Center for Complex Biological Systems at the University of California, Irvine.He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and is an alumnus of John Dewey High School there. He received a B.A. from Yale University and a combined M.D., Ph.D from the University...
, he started to look at neurobiology "because there's a lot of information in the brain." In order to understand mathematical neurobiology, he felt he had to study cellular neurobiology; this in turn led to studying microbiology and continued down to the level of genetics. "When I finally feel I have learned genetics, I should get back to these other problems. But I'm still trying to get the genetics right".
His studies introduced him to David Botstein, a geneticist working at MIT. Botstein was working on a way to unravel how subtle differences in complex genetic systems can become disorders like cancer, diabetes, schizophrenia, and even obesity. Lander then joined Whitehead Institute
Whitehead Institute
Founded in 1982, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research and teaching institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA....
(1986) and later joined MIT as a geneticist. In 1987, he was given the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. In 1990 he founded the WICGR (Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research). WICGR became one of the world's leading centers of genome research, and under Lander's leadership, it has made great progress in developing new methods of analysing mammalian genomes. The Whitehead Institute has also made important breakthroughs in applying this information to the study of human variation and particularly the study of medical genetics. The WICGR formed the basis for the foundation of the Broad Institute
Broad Institute
The Broad Institute is a genomic medicine research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Although it is independently governed and supported as a 501 nonprofit research organization, the institute is formally affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard...
, a transformation in which Lander was instrumental.
In December 2008, he was named, along with Harold E. Varmus
Harold E. Varmus
Harold Elliot Varmus is an American Nobel Prize-winning scientist and the 14th and current Director of the National Cancer Institute, a post he was appointed to by President Barack Obama. He was a co-recipient Harold Elliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American Nobel Prize-winning...
, one of the co-chairs of the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the Obama administration.
Lander is also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival
USA Science and Engineering Festival
USA Science and Engineering Festival was a science festival in Washington, D.C. that founder Larry Book deemed the country’s first national science festival. The inaugural event was held from October 10, 2010 through October 24, 2010 and was planned to be a yearly event. The two week festival...
's Advisory Board.
Contributions to genomics
There were two main groups attempting to sequence the human genome: the first was the Human Genome ProjectHuman Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
(HGP), the publicly funded effort that intended to publish the information it obtained so the public could use it freely and without restrictions. This was a collaborative effort involving many research groups from countries all over the world. The second effort was undertaken by Celera Genomics
Celera Genomics
Celera Corporation was a business unit of the Applera Corporation, but was spun off in July 2008 to become an independent publicly traded company. In May 2011 Quest Diagnostics Incorporated completed the acquisition of Celera, which thus became a wholly owned subsidiary...
who intended to patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
the information obtained and charge subscriptions for use of the sequence data (Celera has since abandoned this policy and has donated large amounts of sequence information for free public use). The HGP was established first but moved slowly in the early phases of research as the role of the Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
was unclear and sequencing technology was in its infancy. Upon the entrance of Celera into the race to discover the genome, the pressure was on the HGP to establish as much of the genome in the public domain as possible. This was a change for the HGP, because many scientists at the time wanted a more complete copy of the genome. Along with other members of the HGP, Lander pushed for quicker discovery so that genes would not be discovered by Celera first.
The public draft of the human genome was published in 2001 in the journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
. The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Center for Genome Research, is listed first (the order was according to total genomic sequence contributed) and Lander is the first author named.
The WICGR has also made a leading contribution to the sequencing of the mouse genome. Aside from academic interest this is an important step in fully understanding the molecular biology of mice which are often used as model organisms in studies of everything from human diseases to embryonic development. Increased understanding of mice will thus facilitate many areas of research. The WICGR has also sequenced the genomes of Ciona savignyi, the pufferfish
Pufferfish
Tetraodontidae is a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish of the Tetraodontiformes order. The family includes many familiar species which are variously called pufferfish, balloonfish, blowfish, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, toadies, honey toads, sugar toads, and sea squab...
, the filamentous
Hypha
A hypha is a long, branching filamentous structure of a fungus, and also of unrelated Actinobacteria. In most fungi, hyphae are the main mode of vegetative growth, and are collectively called a mycelium; yeasts are unicellular fungi that do not grow as hyphae.-Structure:A hypha consists of one or...
fungus Neurospora crassa
Neurospora crassa
Neurospora crassa is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" refers to the characteristic striations on the spores. The first published account of this fungus was from an infestation of French bakeries in 1843. N...
and multiple relatives of Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a species of yeast. It is perhaps the most useful yeast, having been instrumental to baking and brewing since ancient times. It is believed that it was originally isolated from the skin of grapes...
, one of the most studied yeast
Yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...
s. The Ciona savignyi genome provides a good system for exploring the evolutionary origins of all vertebrate
Vertebrate
Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...
s. Pufferfish have smaller sized genomes compared to other vertebrates; as a result their genomes are "mini" models for vertebrates. The sequencing of the yeasts related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae will ease the identification of key gene regulatory elements some of which may be common to all eukaryote
Eukaryote
A eukaryote is an organism whose cells contain complex structures enclosed within membranes. Eukaryotes may more formally be referred to as the taxon Eukarya or Eukaryota. The defining membrane-bound structure that sets eukaryotic cells apart from prokaryotic cells is the nucleus, or nuclear...
s (including both plant and animal kingdoms).
Beyond genomics
Sequence data is just that: a list of bases found in a given stretch of DNA. Its value lies in the discoveries and new technologies it allows. In Lander's case, one of these applications is the study of disease. He is the founder and director of the Broad InstituteBroad Institute
The Broad Institute is a genomic medicine research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Although it is independently governed and supported as a 501 nonprofit research organization, the institute is formally affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard...
, a collaboration between MIT, Harvard, the Whitehead institute and affiliated hospitals. Its goal is "to create tools for genome medicine and make them broadly available to the scientific community; to apply these tools to propel the understanding and treatment of disease". To this end they are studying the variation in the human genome and have led an international effort which has assembled a library of 2.1 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) these act as markers or signposts in the genome allowing the identification of disease susceptibility genes. They hope to construct a map of the human genome using blocks of these SNP called Linkage disequilibrium or LD. This map will be of significant help in medical genetics. It will allow researchers to link a given condition to a given gene or set of genes using the LD as a marker. This will allow for improved diagnostic procedures. Lander and his colleagues are hoping the LD map will allow them to test the Common Disease-Common Variant hypothesis which states that many common diseases may be caused by a small number of common alleles, for example 50% of the variance in susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease is explained by the common allele ApoE4. Lander's group have recently discovered an important association which accounts for a large proportion of population risk for adult onset diabetes.
Lander's most important work may be his development of a molecular taxonomy for cancers. The cancers are grouped according to gene expression and information like their response to chemotherapy is collected for each group. The division of cancers into homogeneous subgroups will allow increased understanding of the molecular origins of these cancers and aid the design of more effective therapies. They have also identified a new type of leukemia called MLL and have identified a gene which may serve as a target for a new drug.
In addition to his research, he has for several years co-taught MIT's required undergraduate introductory biology course (7.012) with Robert Weinberg
Robert Weinberg
Robert Allan Weinberg is a Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at MIT and American Cancer Society Research Professor; his research is in the area of oncogenes and the genetic basis of human cancer. Weinberg is also affiliated with the Broad Institute and is a founding member of the...
.
Associations
In June 2010 Lander was an invitee of the Bilderberg GroupBilderberg Group
The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence. About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from...
and attended the Spanish 2010 Bilderberg conference at the Hotel Dolce in Sitges
Sitges
*Church of Sant Bartolomeu i Santa Tecla . It houses two Gothic sepulchres , belonging to the an older church located on the same site...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Media appearances
Lander was named one of Time magazineTime (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
's 100 most influential people of our time (2004) for his work on the HGP. Lander has also appeared in numerous PBS documentaries about genetics. He was listed at #2 on the MIT150
MIT150
The MIT150 is a list published by the Boston Globe, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011, listing 150 of the most significant innovators, inventions or ideas from MIT, its alumni, faculty, and related people and organizations in the 150 year...
list of the top 150 innovators and ideas from MIT.
Selected works
- In Wake of Genetic Revolution, Questions About Its Meaning, in The New York Times, September 12, 2000, http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=174
See also
- GenomicsGenomicsGenomics is a discipline in genetics concerning the study of the genomes of organisms. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping efforts. The field also includes studies of intragenomic phenomena such as heterosis,...
- BioinformaticsBioinformaticsBioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...
- Human Genome ProjectHuman Genome ProjectThe Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
- SequencingSequencingIn genetics and biochemistry, sequencing means to determine the primary structure of an unbranched biopolymer...
- DNA sequencing theoryDNA sequencing theoryDNA sequencing theory is the broad body of work that attempts to lay analytical foundations for DNA sequencing. The practical aspects revolve around designing and optimizing sequencing projects , predicting project performance, troubleshooting experimental results, characterizing factors such as...