Vamsi Mootha

Vamsi Mootha, M.D., joined 5AM Ventures in 2018 and is currently a Venture Advisor . Dr. Mootha is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and directs a research laboratory based at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also a Professor of Systems Biology and Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute, where he is Founding Co-Director of the Metabolism Program. His group has utilized tandem mass spectrometry, computation, and microscopy to define the 1,000 proteins that comprise the mitochondrial proteome. Dr. Mootha’s team used this inventory to discover the molecular identity of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter, a major channel of communication between the organelle and rest of the cell. His team has also discovered numerous rare disease genes, and has made the unexpected discovery that hypoxia, or low oxygen, can prevent and even reverse neurological diseases in animal models. Dr. Mootha received his undergraduate degree in Mathematical and Computational Science at Stanford University and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. After completing his internship and residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, he pursued postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute. He has received a number of awards, including a Macarthur “Genius Grant,” election to the National Academy of Sciences, and a Padma Shri from the Government of India. Dr. Mootha is based in the Boston, MA.