Dr. Richard Lifton

Biography

Richard Lifton is a Professor Adjunct in the Department of Genetics at Yale School of Medicine. He served as the Lifton Chair in the Department of Genetics from 1998 to 2016 and is the Founder and Executive Director of the Yale Center for Genome Analysis. Lifton graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and obtained his MD and PhD in Biochemistry from Stanford University. He completed his clinical training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital before joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School, and later Yale in 1993. His research employs human genetics and genomics to uncover rare mutations that significantly impact common diseases, particularly hypertension, which affects over a billion people globally. Lifton has developed pivotal methodologies such as low-cost exome sequencing, enabling vast advancements in the clinical diagnosis of genomic conditions. His groundbreaking findings have elucidated mechanisms regulating blood pressure, thereby influencing hypertension treatment strategies worldwide. Lifton is a member of prestigious organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, and has received numerous accolades including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

Research Interests