Wade Harper’s lab employs proteomic and genetic approaches to elucidate fundamental pathways underlying protein and organelle quality control, with a particular emphasis on the ubiquitin system and autophagy. Recent work has resulted in the discovery of factors and pathways that control selective turnover of organelles including ER in response to nutrient stress and during conversion of ES cells to other cell types such as neurons. Ongoing work seeks to systematically elucidate mechanisms and pathways by which the endolysosomal system is maintained.

Wade Harper joined the faculty in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School in 2003, arriving from Baylor College of Medicine.  He earned his PhD at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Chemistry in 1984.  Immediately following this, Dr Harper performed his post-doctoral work at HMS in the laboratory of Bert Vallee before joining the Department of Biochemistry faculty at Baylor College of Medicine in 1988.  Dr Harper joined the Department of Cell Biology (HMS) in 2011 and became department chair in 2014.  He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018, as an associate (foreign) member of EMBO in 2022, and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2023.

The Harper Lab