Sekar Kathiresan

Clinical cardiologist and human geneticist Sekar Kathiresan is the director of preventive cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and a genetics researcher in the Broad Institute’s Program in Medical and Population Genetics. Sekar has studied the inherited basis of complex cardiovascular traits, including blood lipids and myocardial infarction. By leading large-scale human genetics projects, he has defined 30 loci related to blood low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides. In addition, he has defined nine loci associated with myocardial infarction, with three of these being newly defined.

Sekar seeks to apply these discoveries to improve preventive cardiac care. Toward this goal, he has identified a panel of lipid-related polymorphisms that can be used to predict future risk for cardiovascular disease. He plans to test whether a set of genotypes could prove useful in identifying at-risk individuals and in targeting preventive interventions.

Sekar is an assistant professor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and also sees patients in a heart attack primary prevention clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he focuses on preventing a first heart attack in patients with a strong family history of myocardial infarction. He holds research faculty positions in the Cardiovascular Research Center and Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Sekar received his B.A. in 1992 from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1997; he completed his internship and residency in internal medicine and clinical fellowship training in cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. He served as a chief resident in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.