Ramnik Joseph Xavier MD, PhD, FAAN

Ramnik Xavier is a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and co-director of Broad’s Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program. He is the Kurt Isselbacher Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School; director of the Center for Computational and Integrative Biology and a member of the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH); and co-director of the Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics at MIT.

As a clinical gastroenterologist and molecular biologist, Xavier studies the specific molecular mechanisms involved in innate and adaptive immunity as well as the genetic variants associated with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and autoimmunity. By determining the physiological functions of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)-associated polymorphisms, his work illuminates processes underlying mucosal homeostasis and inflammation. Using human cohorts, the laboratory interrogates the microbiome’s impact on immunity and inflammation.

Xavier received his M.B., Ch.B. (Honors) from the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine, University of Zimbabwe, and completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in gastroenterology at MGH. Xavier has spent his academic career at MGH serving as chief of gastroenterology and director of the Center for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease at MGH.