Dr. Andrew Lassar

Biography

Andrew B. Lassar is a Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1975 and a Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1983. Following his postdoctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Lassar established his own laboratory at Harvard in 1991. His laboratory focuses on understanding the transcriptional regulatory pathways that control the formation and maturation of chondrocytes, the cells responsible for cartilage production. The overarching goal of the Lassar Lab is to decipher how specific cell types, including articular chondrocytes and synoviocytes, arise from a common precursor population during the formation of synovial joints. Through advanced methodologies such as genome-wide ATAC-Seq and RNA-Seq, the lab investigates factors like the transcription factor Sox9, which is crucial for the differentiation of mesenchymal cells into chondrocytes.

Research Interests