David Altshuler, MD, PhD
Executive Vice President
Global Research and Chief Scientific Officer
Vertex Pharmaceuticals
About the Speaker
David Altshuler, MD, PhD, is Executive Vice President, Global Research and Chief Scientific Officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Altshuler leads Vertex research, preclinical and pharmaceutical sciences aimed at discovering transformative medicines for the treatment of serious diseases. He also oversees functions for innovation and data strategy and solutions, and is Vice-Chair of the Vertex Foundation.
Prior to Vertex, Dr. Altshuler was a Founding Core Member, Deputy Director and Chief Academic Officer at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. His academic laboratory led the three major projects that characterized and catalogued human genetic variation — the SNP Consortium, HapMap and 1,000 Genome Projects — and pioneered the methods and practice of genetic analysis of common human diseases. The Obama White House named Dr. Altshuler a Champion of Change for his leadership in creating and leading the Global Alliance for Genomic and Health.