Pardis Sabeti

Dr. Pardis Sabeti is a Professor at the Center for Systems Biology and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the Department of Immunology and Infectious Disease at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and a Howard Hughes Investigator. 

Dr. Sabeti is a computational geneticist with expertise in developing algorithms to detect genetic signatures of adaption in humans and the microbial organisms that infect humans. Her lab’s key research areas include (1) Developing analytical methods to detect and investigate evolution in the genomes of humans and other species, (2) Examining host and viral genetic factors driving disease susceptibility to the devastating and deadly diseases in West Africa, Ebola Virus Disease and Lassa hemorrhagic fever. (3) Investigating the genomes of microbes, including the Lassa virus, Ebola virus, Plasmodium falciparum malaria, Vibrio cholera, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, to help in the development of intervention strategies. (4) Determining the microbial cause of undiagnosed acute febrile illness.

Dr. Sabeti completed her undergraduate degree at MIT, her graduate work at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and her medical degree summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School as a Soros Fellow. Dr. Sabeti is a World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leader and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and was named a TIME magazine ‘Person of the Year’ as one of the Ebola fighters. 

Her awards included the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for Natural Science, the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, the NIH Innovator Award, the Packard Fellowship, and an Ellis Island Medal of Honor. She has served on the MIT Board of Trustees and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Women in Science, Medicine, and Engineering. Dr. Sabeti is also the lead singer and co-songwriter of the rock band Thousand Days.

Dr. Sabeti is one of the co-founders and a shareholder of SHERLOCK Biosciences, a company dedicated to improving health worldwide through accurate, fast, and affordable testing. She is on the board and a shareholder of Danaher Corporation, the parent company of both Cepheid and IDT. She is a scientific advisory board member and shareholder of NextGen Jane, a women's health company launched by two lab alumni.