Leonard Lipovich
Leonard Lipovich is an internationally recognized pioneer in long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) biology of human disease. A proud graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City, he earned his B.A. (cum laude) in Genetics and Development from Cornell University (1998), and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Washington, Seattle (2003). He completed postdoctoral training at the Genome Institute of Singapore, where he identified the first mammalian lncRNA functional in stem cell pluripotency and - while leading an international project with the Japan-based FANTOM Consortium -discovered the genome-scale prevalence of evolutionarily non-conserved, primate-specific lncRNAs at human bidirectional promoters and sense-antisense gene pairs. Dr. Lipovich joined Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, USA in 2007, as an assistant professor. He built the first-ever published catalog of human lncRNA genes supported by full-length experimental data. Leading a platform effort within the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) Consortium – a direct successor to the Human Genome Project – Prof. Lipovich was the first to directly empirically reveal unexpected ribosomal translation of short open reading frames from lncRNAs in human cells. He attained an associate professorship and tenure in 2013, received the prestigious U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's New Innovator Award (2014-2019), and was promoted to a full professorship in 2019. His work has been fundamental to establishing that primate-specific lncRNAs directly contribute to the etiology of cancer, diabetes, and epilepsy. His current focus is on identifying, and validating in the laboratory, lncRNAs from genome-wide association studies and personalized genome sequencing, as well as from patient transcriptomes and high-throughput screens, as novel, druggable causes of those diseases. To date, Dr. Lipovich (h-index: 45) has published 88 peer-reviewed papers (including 36 as a first, last, or principal author), delivered over 50 invited presentations, and organized numerous sessions at key conferences. He chaired both the first Keystone Symposium and the first Royal Society international scientific meeting devoted specifically to lncRNA. Dr. Lipovich is a Founding Co-Chair (2019-present) of the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded annual LncRNA Workshop at the IEEE-BIBM conference. In 2024, while retaining his Wayne State University appointment as an Adjunct Professor, he transitioned to Wenzhou-Kean University in Wenzhou, China, where he is a Professor. An industry enthusiast, he is concurrently active in RNA drug development efforts with startup biotech companies in Shenzhen and Belfast. His goal is to improve human health through lncRNA-targeted post-genomic therapeutics.
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