Professor William Chin

Bertarelli Professor of Translational Medical Science and Medicine Emeritus, Harvard Medical School

Professor William Chin is Bertarelli Professor of Translational Medical Science and Medicine Emeritus, Harvard Medical School (HMS). He is also Executive Vice President for Clinical and Translational Science and former Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Frequency Therapeutics, and senior advisor to a number of other biotech companies.

He is also the former Executive Vice President for Science and Regulatory Advocacy and CMO at PhRMA where he led PhRMA’s continuing efforts in science and regulatory advocacy in the drug discovery and development ecosystem, retiring January 1, 2018. He was also the Executive Dean for Research, Bertarelli Professor of Translational Medical Science and Professor of Medicine at HMS from 2010 to 2013. In this role, Professor Chin spearheaded efforts to design and implement the vision for research at HMS, with special emphasis on interdisciplinary and translational research that crosses departmental and institutional boundaries. Prior to this position, Professor Chin was at Eli Lilly and Company, where he worked for over a decade starting in 1999, last as senior vice president for Discovery Research and Clinical Investigation.

Professor Chin is a Harvard-trained endocrinologist and longstanding faculty member. His career is exemplified in part by his extensive bibliography of nearly 300 papers, chapters and books, most of which were generated during his 25 years on the HMS faculty. During his tenure as a faculty member in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, he was chief of the Genetics Division and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator and professor of medicine at HMS.

As a pioneering molecular endocrinologist at HMS, Professor Chin embraced the early use of emerging DNA technology to make important discoveries regarding the structure, function and regulation of hormone genes. His investigations often demonstrated a translational research theme, connecting basic laboratory discoveries to their physiologic relevance in animal models and humans. He has been honoured with numerous awards for research, mentorship and leadership. He received his AB (Chemistry; summa cum laude) from Columbia University and his MD from HMS.