Dr. Raju Kucherlapati
Raju Kucherlapati, Ph.D.
Scientific Director, Harvard Medical School-Partners HealthCare Center for Genetics and Genomics
Paul C. Cabot Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Raju Kucherlapati came to the United States in 1967 after completing undergraduate and graduate degrees in India. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana and did his post-doctoral work in the lab of Frank Ruddle at Yale University. He was assistant professor in the Department of Biochemical Sciences at Princeton University, then became professor in the Department of Genetics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. In 1989 Dr. Kucherlapati went to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where he was the Lola and Saul Kramer Professor of Molecular Genetics and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics, a position he held for eleven years. In 2001 Dr. Kucherlapati became Professor of Medicine and the Paul C. Cabot Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and the first Scientific Director of the Harvard Medical School-Partners HealthCare Center for Genetics and Genomics (www.hpcgg.org).
Dr. Kucherlapati’s research interests include cloning of human disease genes and the generation and characterization of mouse models for human disease. The Kucherlapati laboratory at Harvard Medical School has four major areas of focus: mammalian genetics, where his laboratory participated in the mapping and sequencing of the mouse and human genomes; the etiology of Velo-Cardio-Facial syndrome; generation of mouse models for human cancer; and the etiology of Noonan Syndrome. To date he holds 12 patents. He was a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research at the National Human Genomics Research Institute, and currently serves as co-chair of the steering committee for the National Cancer Institute’s Mouse Models for Human Cancer Consortium. He serves on the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine and was editor in chief of the journal Genomics.
Dr. Kucherlapati was a founder of Cell Genesys, Abgenix and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. He currently serves on the board of Millennium Pharmaceuticals and on the board of privately held AVEO Pharmaceuticals.
