Kieran Chacko

Kieran Chacko, Ph.D. serves as Head of Strategy for Harbinger Health and is a senior associate at Flagship Pioneering, where he works as part of a team of entrepreneurial scientists to conceive, create, resource, and develop first-in-category ventures. Kieran joined Flagship after completing the firm’s Flagship Pioneering Fellowship.

Kieran earned a doctorate at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai under the guidance of Professor Harm van Bakel. His research focused on uncovering the mechanisms responsible for emerging antibiotic resistance and heteroresistance in patients during treatment. Leveraging genomic surveillance data and electronic healthcare records, Kieran developed bioinformatic approaches to reveal novel antibiotic resistance mechanisms and pathogen outbreaks within the hospital. Furthermore, Kieran developed applications for real-time monitoring of antibiotic resistance and consumption trends across the hospital system that are currently in use. He is the recipient of multiple awards from the American Society of Microbiology, Infectious Disease Society of America, and Mount Sinai Hospital for his research.

During his graduate studies, Kieran was part of a team that developed a microfluidics technology with the mission to eradicate neglected tropical diseases through highly sensitive, low-cost diagnostics. The team was awarded the QED Innovation Award by the Mount Sinai Hospital.

Prior to graduate school, Kieran was an analyst in the Corporate and Investment Bank at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co in New York City. He worked on teams across the markets and securities business serving the firm’s large corporate financial institution and emerging market clients. He earned a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Rochester.