Bradley Bernstein

Bradley Bernstein is a Professor of Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and an Early Career Scientist of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Brad co-directs the Broad Institute’s Epigenomics Program and oversees data production centers for the ENCODE project and the NIH Common Fund for Epigenomics. His research focuses on epigenetics—changes in gene activity governed by influences outside the genes themselves—and specifically how the organization of genomic DNA into chromatin influences development and disease. His work is notable for the discovery of epigenetic mechanisms in pluripotent stem cells and for the systematic annotation of enhancer-like elements in the human genome that coincide with DNA sequence variants associated with human diseases.

Brad received his B.S. in Physics from Yale University and his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington School of Medicine. He completed a residency in clinical pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and carried out postdoctoral research at Harvard University. Bernstein’s honors and awards include a Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a junior faculty award from the Culpeper Foundation, an Early Achievement Award from the University of Washington Alumni Association, the Howard Goodman Award, and the Martin Prize for Basic Science from the Massachusetts General Hospital.