Dr. Pardis Sabeti is a Professor at the Center for Systems Biology and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a core institute member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, while also serving as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Born in Tehran, she immigrated to the United States at age two and completed her undergraduate degree at MIT, graduate work at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and earned her medical degree summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School as a Soros Fellow. Her interdisciplinary career uniquely bridges computational genomics, infectious disease research, and clinical medicine, establishing her as a global leader in pathogen surveillance and outbreak response. Dr. Sabeti's strategic vision has positioned her at the forefront of integrating genomic technologies with public health infrastructure to combat emerging infectious threats.
Dr. Sabeti's laboratory has pioneered innovative genomic and computational technologies for detecting, tracking, and containing deadly pathogens, including groundbreaking work during the 2014 Ebola epidemic when her team generated the first large-scale genomic dataset of a high-risk pathogen outbreak. Her research significantly advanced global understanding of viral transmission by demonstrating that the Ebola virus was mutating to enhance human-to-human transmission, while her lab's rapid real-time data sharing set a new standard for outbreak transparency in global health emergencies. The Sabeti lab has made substantial contributions to the genomic surveillance of multiple emerging infectious diseases including Zika virus, Lassa fever, and SARS-CoV-2, with their work elucidating key aspects of viral evolution and transmission dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her development of field-ready genomic approaches has transformed pathogen surveillance capabilities in resource-limited settings worldwide, advancing scientific understanding of viral adaptation and host-pathogen interactions.
Beyond her research contributions, Dr. Sabeti has been instrumental in building genomic capacity across Africa through co-founding the African Center of Excellence in Genomics of Infectious Disease (ACEGID) in 2014 and launching the TED-Audacious funded Sentinel pandemic preemption system in 2022. She has trained over seventy African scientists through dedicated educational programs and established genome centers throughout West Africa, directly enabling the first diagnoses of Ebola in Sierra Leone and Nigeria during the 2014 outbreak. As a co-founder of SHERLOCK Biosciences and Delve Bio, she bridges academic research with real-world applications, while her service on corporate boards demonstrates her commitment to translating genomic insights into practical solutions. Dr. Sabeti currently leads the CDC-funded New England Pathogen Genomic Centers of Excellence, positioning her at the vanguard of next-generation pandemic preparedness strategies that integrate cutting-edge genomics with public health infrastructure.
