Dr. Leonid Mirny is a distinguished biological physicist whose pioneering work has reshaped understanding of genome architecture and cancer evolution. He currently serves as the Richard J. Cohen (1976) Professor in Medicine and Biomedical Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds positions as Core Faculty at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Physics. Dr. Mirny earned his PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University in 1998 following advanced studies at The Weizmann Institute of Science and The Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. His academic trajectory has been marked by significant interdisciplinary contributions spanning physics, genomics, and cancer biology while maintaining affiliations with the Broad Institute and Harvard Biophysics Graduate Program.
Dr. Mirny's transformative research has fundamentally advanced our understanding of three-dimensional genome organization through the development of the influential fractal globule model of chromatin structure during interphase, which resolved longstanding questions about chromosome folding and function within the nucleus. His laboratory pioneered the ICE computational pipeline for Hi-C data analysis, establishing essential tools that have become standard resources for the genomics community worldwide. Notably, his theoretical work characterizing cancer progression as an evolutionary process has integrated genomic data with computer simulations to reveal the dynamics between driver and passenger mutations in tumor development. With over 51,000 citations, his contributions have catalyzed paradigm shifts in both chromosome biology and computational genomics.
Beyond his research achievements, Dr. Mirny has significantly enriched the scientific ecosystem through his leadership roles at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and his affiliation as an affiliate or associate member with the Center for Computational Science and Engineering at MIT. His exceptional contributions have been recognized with prestigious honors including the Simons Investigator award, the 2024 Tel Aviv University International Prize in Biophysics for his pioneering contributions to developing polymer models and theory, which have been instrumental for understanding DNA and chromosome organization, and Fellowship in the American Physical Society. Currently, his laboratory continues to investigate the physical principles governing chromosome conformations while developing innovative approaches to model cancer evolution through comparative genomics. Dr. Mirny remains dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary science that bridges computational modeling with biological discovery, training the next generation of researchers to address fundamental questions in genome organization and disease mechanisms.
