Lars Steinmetz, PhD, professor of genetics, appointed new chair of the department of genetics

Dr. Steinmetz, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation Endowed Professor, steps into this new role as an innovative and influential genetics researcher, a successful entrepreneur, a highly productive leader of laboratories here and in Europe, and with a proven ability to facilitate productive collaborations across sites and disciplines. 

As Professor of Genetics, co-director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center (SGTC), and associate group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, Dr. Steinmetz has helped pioneer technologies that have transformed our understanding of gene regulation and advanced the field of Precision Health. His labs focus on developing novel genomic approaches to investigate the genetic basis of complex phenotypes, the mechanisms of gene regulation, and the molecular systems underpinning disease. Working across the broad axis of fundamental biology to translational research, his labs drive progress in the fields of synthetic biology and quantitative genetics, leveraging the strengths of the SGTC. Alongside researchers from the lab, he has co-founded three companies to further develop technologies that he has helped create.

Dr. Steinmetz earned his PhD at Stanford School of Medicine in 2002 and continued as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and the SGTC. At the age of 27, he started his own group at EMBL and, in parallel, continued to lead a focused team at the SGTC. In 2013, he was appointed Professor of Genetics at Stanford and co-director of the SGTC. As the director of the Life Science Alliance, a joint research initiative between Stanford and EMBL, he brings a unique global perspective to his new role. For over a decade, he has also served as the Director of Graduate Admissions for the Department of Genetics, helping develop a pipeline that consistently attracts future leaders into the department.