Philipp Khaitovich

Biography

Philipp Khaitovich, born in Moscow, Russia in 1973. Philipp completed undergraduate studies in molecular biology at Moscow State University in 1995 and PhD in biochemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1999. From 2000 till 2006 Philipp worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology at the department of Evolutionary Genetics headed by Prof. Svante Pääbo. In September 2006, Philipp took a faculty position at the Institute for Computational Biology jointly established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Society in Shanghai China. In 2012 Philipp was promoted to an institute director position. From 2012, Philipp is a fellow member of Max Planck Society of Germany, as well as adjunct Professor at ShanghaiTech University in Shanghai, China. Philipp joined Skoltech as a Full Professor in April 2014.

Research Interest

As humans, we are always interested to know how exactly our species came to exist. Human evolution has resulted in a species that possesses an apparently unique set of phenotypic capabilities. Newly evolved human-specific features may also represent vulnerable points in otherwise well buffered functional networks, resulting in uniquely human disease susceptibilities. In our laboratory, we search for molecular features specific to humans, through integrative analysis of genetic, transcriptomic and metabolomic data measured in modern and archaic humans, as well as closely related mammalian species: chimpanzees, macaques and mice. Following this approach, we have identified several molecular mechanisms that potentially underlie the evolution of the human phenotype features including exceptional cognitive abilities, as well as outstanding longevity.