Dr. Sahand Hormoz is a prominent systems biologist whose innovative research bridges theoretical physics, experimental biology, and computational science to advance our understanding of cellular dynamics in health and disease. He currently serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Data Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he leads a multidisciplinary research program focused on single-cell analysis. After completing his PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard University under Michael Brenner, he pursued dual postdoctoral training as a theoretical physicist at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics with Boris Shraiman and as an experimental biologist in Michael Elowitz's laboratory at Caltech, establishing a unique foundation that combines rigorous quantitative approaches with biological experimentation.
Dr. Hormoz's laboratory develops cutting-edge technologies for recording and measuring the molecular states of individual cells alongside sophisticated computational frameworks for interpreting complex biological datasets. His groundbreaking research reconstructs the history of cancer in individual patients by tracing cellular lineages through genomic analysis, revealing that blood cancers can originate decades before clinical diagnosis. This innovative approach provides unprecedented insights into when cancer first occurs and how cancer cells expand within each patient, addressing fundamental questions about disease progression and heterogeneity. His work has significantly advanced the field of single-cell genomics, with his research accumulating over 3,000 citations, demonstrating substantial impact across systems biology and cancer research.
As an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and an affiliate of both the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Harvard Cancer Center, Dr. Hormoz actively contributes to collaborative research initiatives that span multiple institutions and disciplinary boundaries. His laboratory continues to pioneer synthetic platforms that enable cells to record their own lineage histories within their DNA, creating transformative opportunities to study developmental processes and disease progression at unprecedented resolution. By integrating these technological innovations with advanced computational analyses, his research promises to revolutionize our understanding of cell state transitions during both normal development and disease processes. Dr. Hormoz remains steadfast in his mission to control biological systems to understand fundamental life processes and develop novel approaches for curing diseases including cancer.
