Share

Shamil Sunyaev

Ph.D.

Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Sunyaev is a computational genomicist and geneticist. Research in his lab encompasses many aspects of population genetic variation including the origin of mutations, the effect of allelic variants on molecular function, population and evolutionary genetics, and genetics of human complex and Mendelian traits. He developed several computational and statistical methods widely adopted by the community.

Dr. Sunyaev obtained a PhD in molecular biophysics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and completed his postdoctoral training in bioinformatics at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). He is an Associate Member at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He co-leads the NHGRI-funded Genome Sequencing Program Analysis Center and is actively involved in the Undiagnosed Diseases Network and in the Brigham Genomic Medicine program. He also co-organizes the Boston Evolutionary Genomics Group.

Shamil Sunyaev

Ph.D.

Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Sunyaev is a computational genomicist and geneticist. Research in his lab encompasses many aspects of population genetic variation including the origin of mutations, the effect of allelic variants on molecular function, population and evolutionary genetics, and genetics of human complex and Mendelian traits. He developed several computational and statistical methods widely adopted by the community.

Dr. Sunyaev obtained a PhD in molecular biophysics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and completed his postdoctoral training in bioinformatics at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). He is an Associate Member at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He co-leads the NHGRI-funded Genome Sequencing Program Analysis Center and is actively involved in the Undiagnosed Diseases Network and in the Brigham Genomic Medicine program. He also co-organizes the Boston Evolutionary Genomics Group.

Recent Publications

Learning Patient Similarity from Genomics for Precision Oncology

Published On 2025 Dec 25

Journal article

CONCLUSION: This similarity-based modeling framework distilled complex molecular and clinical data into concise, context-specific insights that augment clinician judgment, providing a foundation for a real-time learning, patient-centered decision support model in precision oncology.


Phenotypic Variability and Paternal Inheritance of a CHD8 Variant Causing Intellectual Developmental Disorder With Autism and Macrocephaly Confirmed by Epigenetic and Structural Analyses

Published On 2025 Dec 17

Journal article

CONCLUSION: We describe the case of IDDAM caused by a paternally inherited CHD8 variant. Our findings highlight the importance of considering parental inheritance in IDDAM diagnoses and suggest epigenetic and structural biology analyses as valuable tools for reclassifying VUS when variant pathogenicity remains uncertain.