Stephen J. Haggarty

Dr. Stephen J. Haggarty is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, an Associate Neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Director of the MGH Chemical Neurobiology Laboratory within the Center for Genomic Medicine. He is also a Senior Associate Member of the Broad Institute, Affiliate Faculty Member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Dr. Haggarty’s research program operates at the interface of neurology and psychiatry with a focus on dissecting the role of neuroplasticity in health and disease using chemical biology. His efforts are guided by knowledge emerging from human genetics regarding the root causes of disease and have led to the discovery of novel chemical probes targeting the regulation of neurotrophic factor signalling, epigenetic regulation of neuronal gene expression, neurogenesis, synaptogenesis, and proteostasis networks, including most recently using the strategy of targeted protein degradation. A major emphasis of Dr. Haggarty’s research program is the use of reprogramming technology to create patient-specific, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as ex vivo models of neurogenetic disorders and their use for characterising chemical probes. The ability to differentiate human iPSCs into neural networks with the capacity to form synapses and regulate genes in an activity-dependent manner provides powerful new avenues for studies of neuroplasticity, for understanding the neurobiology of human disease, as well as for addressing the challenging goal of discovering novel targets and next-generation, disease-modifying therapies using the principles of genomic medicine.