HarvardSpeak LA: How Genes Affect Our Height, Weight, and Other Things We Care About – A Discussion with Prof. Joel Hirschhorn ’86, MD ’95
Dr. Joel Hirschhorn will discuss how genetic variants can be used to predict future diseases or traits like height and weight. He will also discuss the opportunities and challenges for these genetic discoveries to open up avenues of research that, over the next decades, should lead to improved treatments for many diseases. The event will be moderated by Neil B. Morganbesser ’86.
Tuesday, August 12, 2025 @ 4:30-5:30pm
Virtual Event via Zoom (details sent after registration)
Register: Please RSVP below
Cost: No charge
Contact: Neil Morganbesser, nmorganbesser@gmail.com
Height, weight and susceptibility to most diseases travel in families: children usually resemble their own parents more than they resemble their classmates’ parents. Much of this familial resemblance is due to the collective action of many inherited DNA sequence differences (genetic variants), mostly discovered over the last two decades. Dr. Joel Hirschhorn will discuss how these genetic variants can already be used in combination to predict future diseases or traits like height and weight. He will also discuss the opportunities and challenges for these genetic discoveries to open up avenues of research that, over the next decades, should lead to improved treatments for many diseases.
About our Speaker:
Dr. Hirschhorn is the Chief of Endocrinology and the Concordia Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute. His research focuses on genetics of common human diseases and traits, especially those related to body size (height and weight). He chairs the GIANT consortium, which has discovered many of the genetic variants known to affect obesity and height. His lab uses largely computational approaches to study how these genetic discoveries can lead to new opportunities for therapy for obesity or growth disorders, and how genetic information could help identify children who have undiagnosed diseases that impair growth. Other areas studied by the lab include diabetic kidney disease and hypermobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
Dr. Hirschhorn received his A.B. summa cum laude in biochemistry from Harvard College in 1986 and his MD-PhD (in genetics, with Fred Winston) from Harvard Medical School in 1995. He completed a pediatric residency and pediatric endocrinology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital and postdoctoral training with Eric Lander at the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research. He has co-directed the Metabolism Program at the Broad Institute since its inception in 2004, and he has helped direct the Human Genetics course for first year Harvard Medical students since 2006. Dr. Hirschhorn has received multiple awards, including the Society for Pediatric Research E. Mead Johnson Award, he recently served as the President of the Society for Pediatric Research, and he is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. The event will be moderated by Neil B. Morganbesser AB’86.
About HarvardSpeak LA:
HarvardSpeak LA is a program designed to bring preeminent Harvard faculty and researchers to discuss current topics of interest with the Harvard Club of Southern California through one-hour webinars, consisting of a presentation followed by Q&A. Recent HarvardSpeak LA events have included Senior Research Fellow Loretta Mickley on “Wildfires in the Western U.S.,” Astronomy Prof. Avi Loeb on “Evidence of Extraterrestrial Intelligence?” in February, Law School Prof. Randall Kennedy on his forthcoming book, “How We Overcame: Protest, Law, and the Demise of Jim Crow” in March, retired government Prof. Harvey Mansfield in April, Philosophy Prof. Ned Hall on “Creating a Culture of Civic Discourse at Harvard” in May and Prof. Theda Skocpol on “America’s Democracy and Governing Crisis” in June.
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Refund Policy: We do not provide refunds for any of our events.
Virtual Event Instructions: