Dr. David Altshuler

David Altshuler, M.D. '94, Ph.D. '94, is Senior Lecturer at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) focused on understanding the genetics of common human disease and how to enable discovery of transformative medicines for serious diseases. From 2015 to 2026 he was Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, overseeing discovery of TRIKAFTA® and ALYFTREK®, the first triple therapies for cystic fibrosis; CASGEVY™, the first approved CRISPR-based medicine, for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia; and JOURNAVX™, the first non-opioid class of pain medicine approved in 20 years. He served on Vertex's Board of Directors from 2012 to 2014. Previously he was a Founding Core Member, Deputy Director and Chief Academic Officer of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Professor of Genetics and Medicine at HMS, and an endocrinologist at MGH. He co-led the SNP Consortium, HapMap and 1000 Genomes Projects, pioneered genetic analysis of common disease, and was founding Chair of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, serves on the Board of Trustees of Rockefeller University, Science Review Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his B.S. from MIT, his M.D. Ph.D. from HMS, and trained in internal medicine and endocrinology at MGH. He is married to Jill Altshuler '87, MBA '94, and has two sons, Zachary '20 and Jason HLS '28.