Bradley Bernstein, MD, MPH

Dr. Bradley Bernstein is the Bernard and Mildred Kayden Research Institute Chair and Professor of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Broad Institute Member. Bernstein’s research focuses on epigenetics – changes in gene activity governed by influences outside the genes themselves – and specifically how modifications to the protein scaffold called chromatin contribute to mammalian development and human cancer. His work is notable for the identification of specialized chromatin structures that underlie stem cell pluripotency and aberrant epigenetic mechanisms that drive tumor initiation and drug resistance. He currently directs the Broad Institute’s Epigenomics Program, and is a leader of the NIH’s ENCODE project that aims to map all regulatory sequence elements in the human genome.

Bernstein received his B.S. from Yale University and his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington, before completing a residency in clinical pathology and postdoctoral research at Harvard University. Honors include an Early Career Scientist Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, an American Cancer Society Professorship, and the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research.