Eric Lander

Eric Steven Lander (born February 3, 1957) is an American mathematician, geneticist, and molecular biologist renowned for his foundational contributions to genomics. A professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lander founded and led the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research from 1991 to 2004, which became a cornerstone of the international Human Genome Project, producing genetic and physical maps essential for sequencing the human genome completed in 2003. He subsequently established the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in 2004, serving as its president and directing efforts to apply genomic data to understanding diseases such as cancer and diabetes through comparative genomics and functional annotation of the genome. Lander's mathematical expertise enabled pioneering computational approaches to identify genetic variations linked to complex traits and disorders. In 2021, he was appointed the first Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and presidential science advisor by President Joe Biden, but resigned in February 2022 after a White House investigation found credible evidence that he had bullied and demeaned staff, violating workplace policies.

Eric Lander was born on February 3, 1957, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. His father, Harold Lander, was an attorney who suffered from multiple sclerosis, which disabled him for much of Lander's childhood and led to his death when Lander was 11 years old. His mother, Rhoda G. Lander, worked as a social studies teacher.