Dr. Lander, a geneticist, molecular biologist, and mathematician, is the founder and director of the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research, one of the world's leading genome centers. He is also professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Lander earned his B.A. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1978 and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Oxford University in 1981. He was also an assistant and associate professor of managerial economics at the Harvard Business School from 1981 to 1990.

Dr. Lander was named a Rhodes Scholar in 1978 and received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1987. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1997, the U.S. Institute of Medicine in 1998, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999. He has received numerous awards and honorary degrees, and has served on many advisory boards for governments, academic institutions, scientific societies, and companies.

Under Dr. Lander's leadership, the Center for Genome Research has been responsible for developing most of the key tools of modern genomics, the study of a mammal's genetic code and how it functions. The Center for Genome Research has made these tools immediately and freely available to the scientific community, with the aim of accelerating progress in biomedical research.