Christopher Heinen
Tenured Professor of Medicine, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of Connecticut Health
Elected to the Academy in 2026
Education
Northwestern University, B.S., Biomedical Engineering; University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, PhD, Molecular Genetics; Thomas Jefferson University, Postdoctoral Fellowship, Molecular Genetics
Professional Areas
Dr. Heinen has translated knowledge of the molecular biology and genetics of the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) pathway and its role in hereditary cancer into assay development to assess the functional impact of patient-derived sequence variants in MMR genes via CRISPR-Cas gene editing.
Citation
For pioneering the use of human pluripotent stem cells and CRISPR-Cas9 to study the function of patient-derived mismatch repair gene variants in Lynch syndrome, which has helped determine the cancer risk for Lynch syndrome patients and their families.