Jeannie T. Lee is the Philip A. Sharp, Ph.D., Endowed Chair in Molecular Biology, Professor of Genetics (and Pathology) at Harvard Medical School and the interim chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She specializes in the study of epigenetic regulation by long noncoding RNAs and uses X-chromosome inactivation as a model system.

Lee is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine, a Harrington Rare Disease Scholar of the Harrington Discovery Institute and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is a recipient of the Lurie Prize from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, an awardee of the Centennial Prize from the Genetics Society of America, the 2010 Molecular Biology Prize and the 2020 Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences. She was also named a distinguished graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. From 2013 to 2018, she co-launched the Epigenetics Initiative at Harvard Medical School and served as its co-director. Serving on the Board of Directors of the Genetics Society of America (GSA), Lee spearheaded TAGC (The All-Genetics Conference) in 2016. As GSA’s president, she established a strategic plan and a development strategy for the society in 2018.

Lee received her A.B. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University and obtained her M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Lee then carried out postdoctoral work at the Whitehead Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and became chief resident of clinical pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital prior to joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School. To translate basic knowledge to the clinic, Lee co-founded Translate Bio and Fulcrum Therapeutics, two biotech companies specializing in RNA and epigenetic therapies.