Roger Hajjar, MD

Roger Hajjar is the director of the Gene and Cell Therapy Institute at Mass General Brigham. At Novoheart, Dr. Hajjar serves as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Hajjar is an internationally renowned scientific leader in the field of cardiac gene therapy. His academic laboratory had validated a number of cardiac targets, including the cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase (SERCA2a), that led to the initiation and completion under his guidance of First-in-Human gene therapy trials in patients with heart failure and cardiomyopathies.

Dr. Hajjar graduated with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and subsequently obtained his MD from Harvard-MIT.  He has authored over 500 publications and has received numerous awards for his achievements in the field of cardiac gene therapy, including the Young Investigator Award of the American Heart Association, the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist award, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Johns Hopkins University, the American Heart Association Distinguished Achievement Award and the Thomas W. Smith Award from the American Heart Association.

He is the founder of many gene therapy companies with multiple cardiac gene therapy trials in progress. Dr Hajjar is concurrently the President and Chief Medical Officer of Sardocor, a clinical-stage gene therapy company with three open INDs approved by the FDA for gene therapy clinical trials.