Dr. Eric S. Lander is a geneticist, molecular biologist and a mathematician, with research interests in human genetics, mouse genetics, population genetics, and computational and mathematical methods in biology. He and his research group have developed many of the tools of modern genome research -- including genomic maps of the human mouse and rat genomes in connection with the Human Genome project and techniques for the genetic analyses of complex, multigenic traits. He has applied these techniques to the understanding of cancer, diabetes, hypertension, renal failure and dwarfism. Dr. Lander is a Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research. Dr. Lander earned his A.B. in mathematics from Princeton in 1978, and his D. Phil. in mathematics from Oxford University in 1981. In addition to his work in biology, he was also assistant and associate professor of managerial economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration during the period 1981-1990. Dr. Lander was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1978, received the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship in 1987 for his work in genetics. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1990, in recognition of "research on the application of mathematical and statistical approaches to molecular genetics." He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1997 and the U.S. Institute of Medicine in 1998. Dr. Lander serves on and chairs numerous committees for various government agencies and scientific societies.