Eric D. Green

These two strategic planning processes have guided an expansion of NHGRI’s research portfolio, highlights of which include the design and launch of major new programs to accelerate the application of genomics to medical care, to catalyze the growth of genomic data science, to continue efforts to unravel the functional complexities of the human genome, and to enhance the building of the genomics workforce of the future.

Green received his B.S. degree in bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1981 and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington University in 1987. During residency training in clinical pathology (laboratory medicine), he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Maynard Olson, where he launched his career in genomics research.

Dr. Green has played a leadership role in developing many high-profile efforts relevant to genomics. These efforts include multiple NIH Common Fund Programs – such as the Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa), and the Human Microbiome Project – the Smithsonian-NHGRI exhibition Genome: Unlocking Life's Code, several trans-NIH data science initiatives, the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy, and the U.S. Precision Medicine Initiative and NIH All of Us Research Program.

As NHGRI director, Dr. Green leads the Institute's research programs and other initiatives. Under his guidance, the Institute has completed two major cycles of strategic planning. The first effort yielded the highly cited 2011 NHGRI strategic plan, “Charting a course for genomic medicine from base pairs to bedside” the second will yield a new strategic plan in October 2020.

Green has served as chief of the NHGRI Genome Technology Branch (1996-2009), director of the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center (1997-2009), and NHGRI Scientific Director (2002-2009). He was appointed by Francis Collins to be NHGRI Director in 2009.

In 1992, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Pathology and Genetics as well as a co-investigator in the Human Genome Center at Washington University. In 1994, he joined the newly established Intramural Research Program of the National Center for Human Genome Research, later renamed the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Honors given to Green include a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (1989-1990), a Lucille P. Markey Scholar Award in Biomedical Science (1990-1994), induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2002), an Alumni Achievement Award from Washington University School of Medicine (2005), induction into the Association of American Physicians (2007), a Distinguished Alumni Award from Washington University (2010), the Cotlove Lectureship Award from the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists (2011), a Ladue Horton Watkins High School Distinguished Alumni Award (2012), and the Wallace H. Coulter Lectureship Award from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (2012). He is a founding editor of the journal Genome Research (1995-present) and a series editor for Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual (1994-1998), both published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. He is also co-editor of the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics (since 2005). Green has authored and co-authored over 340 scientific publications.

Eric D. Green (born December 10, 1959) is an American genomics researcher who had significant, start-to-finish involvement in the Human Genome Project. He is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a position he has held since 2009. Green is an ardent St. Louis Cardinals fan.