Leonard Lipovich's Biography

Leonard Lipovich, Associate Professor, Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Wayne State University

Leonard Lipovich, a proud graduate of Stuyvesant High School, New York City, earned his B.A. (cum laude) in Genetics and Development from Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.) in 1998, and his Ph.D. in Genome Sciences from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 2003. He completed postdoctoral training at the Genome Institute of Singapore, where he discovered the first mammalian long non-coding RNA functional in stem cell pluripotency. Dr. Lipovich joined Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan in 2007 as an assistant professor, and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2013. In 2014, Dr. Lipovich received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's New Innovator Award for his work on primate-specific lncRNAs regulating cell growth and cell death in human breast cancer. His current research, at the interface of Genome-Wide Association Studies, whole-genome sequencing, and direct functional validations of lncRNA roles in human cells, interrogates lncRNAs in cancer and metabolic disorders, advancing toward personalized, lncRNA-targeted post-genomic therapeutics.