Eric Steven Lander (born February 3, 1957) is an American
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
and
geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processes ...
who served as the 11th director of the
Office of Science and Technology Policy and
Science Advisor to the President
The Science Advisor to the President is an individual charged with providing advisory opinions and analysis on science and technology matters to the President of the United States. The first Science Advisor, Vannevar Bush, chairman of the Office of ...
, serving on the
presidential Cabinet.
Lander is a professor of biology at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT), a professor of systems biology at
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
, a former member of the
Whitehead Institute
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...
, and the founding director of the
Broad Institute
The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The institu ...
. He is a
1987 MacArthur Fellow and
Rhodes Scholar. Lander co-chaired President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
. Lander announced he would resign from the Biden Administration effective February 18, 2022 after allegations surfaced he had engaged in bullying and abusive conduct directed against his subordinates and other White House staff.
Early life and education
Lander was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, to
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
parents, the son of Rhoda G. Lander, a social studies teacher, and Harold Lander, an attorney. He was captain of the math team at
Stuyvesant High School, graduating in 1974 as valedictorian and an
International Mathematical Olympiad
The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university 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 i ...
Silver Medalist for the U.S.
He attended and later taught at the
Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire is ...
program. At age 17, he wrote a paper on
quasiperfect number In mathematics, a quasiperfect number is a natural number ''n'' for which the sum of all its divisors (the divisor function ''σ''(''n'')) is equal to 2''n'' + 1. Equivalently, ''n'' is the sum of its non-trivial divisors (that is, its divisors excl ...
s for which he won the
Westinghouse Science Talent Search
Westinghouse may refer to:
Businesses Current companies
*Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the company that manages the Westinghouse brand, with licensees:
**Westinghouse Electric Company, providing nuclear power-related services
** Westingho ...
.
Lander graduated from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
in 1978 as valedictorian and with a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
in Mathematics.
He completed his senior thesis, "On the structure of projective modules", under
John Coleman Moore
John Coleman Moore (May 27, 1923 – January 1, 2016) was an American mathematician. The Borel−Moore homology and Eilenberg–Moore spectral sequence are named after him.
Early life and education
Moore was born in 1923 in Staten Island, New ...
's supervision.
He then attended
Wolfson College, Oxford
Wolfson College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Located in north Oxford along the River Cherwell, Wolfson is an all-graduate college with around sixty governing body fellows, in addition to both research a ...
as a
Rhodes Scholar, and he wrote his
Doctor of Philosophy
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
thesis on algebraic
coding theory
Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and data storage. Codes are studied ...
and
symmetric block designs under
Peter Cameron's supervision.
Career
Early mathematical career
As a mathematician, Lander studied combinatorics and applications of
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 studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essen ...
to
coding theory
Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and data storage. Codes are studied ...
. He enjoyed mathematics, but did not wish to spend his life in such a "monastic" career.
Unsure what to do next, he took a job teaching
managerial economics
Managerial economics is a branch of economics involving the application of economic methods in the managerial decision-making process.• Trefor Jones (2004). ''Business Economics and Managerial Decision Making'', WileyDescriptionand chapter-pre ...
at
Harvard Business School. At the suggestion of his brother, developmental biologist
Arthur Lander, he started to look at neurobiology, saying at the time, "because there's a lot of information in the brain". To understand mathematical neurobiology, he felt he had to study cellular neurobiology; this in turn led to studying microbiology and eventually 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", Lander said.
Lander later became acquainted with
David Botstein
David Botstein (born September 8, 1942) is an American biologist serving as the chief scientific officer of Calico. He served as the director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University from 2003 to 2013, where ...
, a geneticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Botstein was working on a way to unravel how subtle differences in complex genetic systems can become disorders such as cancer, diabetes, schizophrenia, and even obesity. The two collaborated to develop a computer algorithm to analyze the maps of genes.
In 1986 Lander joined the
Whitehead Institute
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...
and became an assistant professor at MIT. He was awarded a
MacArthur Fellow
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...
ship in 1987. In 1990, he founded the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research (WICGR). The WICGR became one of the world's leading centers of genome research, and under Lander's leadership made great progress in developing new methods of analyzing mammalian genomes. It also made important breakthroughs in applying this information to the study of human genetic variation, and formed the basis for the foundation of the
Broad Institute
The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The institu ...
—a transformation Lander spearheaded.
Contributions to genomics
Two main groups attempted to sequence the human genome. The first was the
Human Genome Project, a loosely organized, publicly funded effort that intended to publish the information it obtained freely and without restrictions. Many research groups from countries all over the world were involved in this effort. The second was undertaken by
Celera Genomics
Celera is a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics which focuses on genetic sequencing and related technologies. It was founded in 1998 as a business unit of Applera, spun off into an independent company in 2008, and finally acquired by Quest Diagnost ...
, which intended to
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
the information obtained and charge subscriptions for use of the sequence data. Established first, the Human Genome Project moved slowly in the early phases as the
Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-re ...
's role was unclear and sequencing technology was in its infancy. Officially, the Human Genome Project had an eight-year head start before Celera entered the race, though discussions for the Human Genome Project began fourteen years before Celera announced their own project.
Because the Human Genome Project was a $3 billion publicly funded venture,
the consortia raced to enter as much of the human genome into the public domain as quickly as possible once Celera began work in 1998. This was a change of strategy for the Human Genome Project, because many scientists at the time wanted to establish a more complete copy of the genome, not simply publish the many fragments individually. Lander aggressively pressured Human Genome Project scientists to work longer and faster to publish genome fragments before Celera. Lander himself is now listed on 73 patents and patent applications related to genomics.
In February 2001, both the Human Genome Project and Celera published drafts of the human genome in the scientific journals
''Nature'' and
''Science'', respectively. In the Human Genome Project's ''Nature'' publication, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Center for Genome Research, was listed first, with Lander listed as the first named author.
Leveraging Celera's sequencing and analysis techniques, the Whitehead Institute also made a contribution to the sequencing of the mouse genome, 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. The WICGR has since sequenced the genomes of ''
Ciona savignyi'' (sea squirt), the
pufferfish, the
filamentous fungus ''
Neurospora crassa
''Neurospora crassa'' is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" in Greek, refers to the characteristic striations on the spores. The first published account of this fungus was from an infestation ...
'', and multiple relatives of ''
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' () (brewer's yeast or baker's yeast) is a species of yeast (single-celled fungus microorganisms). The species has been instrumental in winemaking, baking, and brewing since ancient times. It is believed to have b ...
'', one of the most studied
yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constit ...
s. The ''Ciona savignyi'' genome provides a good system for exploring the evolutionary origins of all
vertebrate
Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with c ...
s. Pufferfish have smaller-sized genomes than other vertebrates; as a result, their genomes are "mini" models for vertebrates. The sequencing of the yeasts related to ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' will facilitate the identification of key gene regulatory elements, some of which may be common to all
eukaryotes (including both plant and animal kingdoms).
Lander was the founding editor of the ''
Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics
The ''Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Annual Reviews since 2000. It releases an annual volume of review articles relevant to the fields of genomics and human genetics. Aravinda Chak ...
''. He remained editor till 2004.
Beyond genomics
Sequence data is a list of bases found in a given stretch of DNA. Its value lies in the discoveries and new technologies it allows. For Lander, one of these applications is the study of disease. Lander is the founder and director of the
Broad Institute
The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The institu ...
, 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 in order 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 that has assembled a library of 2.1 million
single-nucleotide polymorphism
In genetics, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP ; plural SNPs ) is a germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific position in the genome. Although certain definitions require the substitution to be present in a sufficiently lar ...
s (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 (LD). This map will be of significant help in medical genetics by allowing 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 that 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 has recently discovered an important association that 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 such as their response to chemotherapy. The division of cancers into homogeneous subgroups will increase understanding of these cancers' molecular origins and help devise more effective therapies. Lander's group has also identified a new type of leukemia, MLL, and a gene that may serve as a target for a new drug.
Teaching
For several years, Lander has co-taught MIT's required undergraduate introductory biology course (7.012) with
Robert Weinberg. Since 2013 he has also taught two online courses, "Quantitative Biology Workshop" and "7.00x Introduction to Biology - The Secret of Life" via the
EdX platform by working with the MITx Bio group.
Translational ventures
Lander is a founding advisor of Foundation Medicine, a company that aims to bring comprehensive cancer genomic analysis to routine clinical care. He is also a co-founder of Verastem, a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat cancer by targeting
cancer stem cells.
Forensic science and criminal justice
In 1989, Lander provided expert testimony in the New York criminal case ''People v. Castro''. He showed that the then-current method of interpreting DNA evidence was liable to give false positive matches, implicating innocent defendants. Two of the defense attorneys in that case,
Peter Neufeld
Peter J. Neufeld (born July 17, 1950) is an American lawyer, cofounder, with Barry Scheck, of the Innocence Project, and a founding partner in the civil rights law firm Neufeld Scheck & Brustin. Starting from his earliest years as an attorney rep ...
and
Barry Scheck
Barry Charles Scheck (born September 19, 1949) is an American lawyer. He received national media attention while serving on O. J. Simpson's defense team, collectively dubbed the " Dream Team", helping to win an acquittal in the highly publicize ...
, went on to found the
Innocence Project
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futu ...
, an organization that uses DNA analysis to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners. Lander is a member of the Innocence Project's board of directors.
Science Advisor to the President
In January 2021, President-elect
Joe Biden nominated Lander as
Science Advisor to the President
The Science Advisor to the President is an individual charged with providing advisory opinions and analysis on science and technology matters to the President of the United States. The first Science Advisor, Vannevar Bush, chairman of the Office of ...
and announced that he would elevate the position to a
Cabinet-level
A cabinet is a body of high-ranking state officials, typically consisting of the executive branch's top leaders. Members of a cabinet are usually called cabinet ministers or secretaries. The function of a cabinet varies: in some countrie ...
post.
In January 2021, 500 female scientists published an editorial in
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
to consider naming someone else to the position, because he was well known within the scientific community for offending women.
His nomination had been held up possibly due to requests for clarification about his having attended two gatherings where
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American sex offender and financier. Epstein, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, began his professional life by teaching at the Dalton School in Manhattan, des ...
, a wealthy large-scale donor to science who was also a convicted sex offender, was present. On April 29, a confirmation hearing was held in the
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is a standing committee of the United States Senate. Besides having broad jurisdiction over all matters concerning interstate commerce, science and technology policy, a ...
. On May 20, the committee voted to report favorably on the nomination, with five Republican senators voting against. On May 28, 2021, before a Memorial Day recess, his nomination was confirmed by voice vote by the full Senate. Lander was sworn in as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy on June 2, 2021. He took his oath using a rare 1492 copy of the
Pirkei Avot
Pirkei Avot ( he, פִּרְקֵי אָבוֹת; also transliterated as ''Pirqei Avoth'' or ''Pirkei Avos'' or ''Pirke Aboth''), which translates to English as Chapters of the Fathers, is a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims from ...
.
On February 7, 2022, ''
Politico
''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...
'' reported on a White House investigation in which fourteen current and former Office of Science and Technology Policy staffers accused Lander on February 4 of having bullied and demeaned his subordinates. Lander admitted to the behavior and issued an apology to staff on February 4, his apology includes, "I am devastated that I caused hurt to past and present colleagues by the way in which I have spoken to them... I believe it is not possible to continue effectively in my role, and the work of this office is far too important to be hindered." He later resigned on February 7.
Recognition and service
In 1999, Lander received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...
.
In 2004, Lander was named one of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' magazine's
100 most influential people
''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, po ...
of our time for his work on the Human Genome Project. He has appeared in numerous
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
documentaries about genetics. He was ranked #2 on the
MIT150
The MIT150 is a list published by the Boston Globe, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2011, listing 150 of the most significant innovators, inventions or ideas from MIT, its alumni, faculty, ...
list of MIT's innovators and ideas.
In December 2008, Lander and
Harold E. Varmus
Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center.
He was ...
were named co-chairs of the
Obama administration's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
. In 2012 he received the
Dan David Prize
The Dan David Prize is a major international award that recognizes and supports outstanding contributions to the study of history and other disciplines that shed light on the human past. It awards nine prizes of $300,000 each year to outstanding ...
.
Lander is a member of the advisory board to the
USA Science and Engineering Festival
The USA Science & Engineering Festival is a bi-annual science festival held in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2010 by Larry Bock, the festival is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in the ...
.
In 2013, Lander was awarded the first
Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences
The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of the ...
. In 2016,
Semantic Scholar AI program ranked him #1 on its list of most influential biomedical researchers.
In 2017, Lander received an
''honoris causa'' doctorate from the
Université catholique de Louvain. Also in 2017, he received the
William Allan Award The William Allan Award, given by the American Society of Human Genetics
The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG), founded in 1948, is a professional membership organization for specialists in human genetics. As of 2009, the organization had ...
from the
American Society of Human Genetics
The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG), founded in 1948, is a professional membership organization for specialists in human genetics. As of 2009, the organization had approximately 8,000 members. The Society's members include researchers, a ...
.
In 2019, he served on the Life Sciences jury for the
Infosys Prize
The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards in India to r ...
. In 2020,
Pope Francis
Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...
appointed him a member of the
Pontifical Academy of Science. In 2021, Lander, who holds many patents, disclosed ownership of assets worth more than $45 million.
References
External links
Lander at MIT*
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lander, Eric Steven
1957 births
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
21st-century American biologists
21st-century American economists
20th-century American Jews
21st-century American Jews
American Rhodes Scholars
Annual Reviews (publisher) editors
Biden administration cabinet members
Biotechnologists
Broad Institute people
Economists from New York (state)
Fellows of the AACR Academy
Genetic epidemiologists
Harvard Business School faculty
Human Genome Project scientists
International Mathematical Olympiad participants
Jewish American members of the Cabinet of the United States
Jewish American scientists
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty
Mathematicians from New York (state)
Mathematics popularizers
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Office of Science and Technology Policy officials
Princeton University alumni
Scientists from Brooklyn
Stuyvesant High School alumni
Whitehead Institute faculty
Members of the National Academy of Medicine