Roger Hajjar serves as President, Chief Medical Officer, and Co-Founder of Medera, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering targeted cardiac gene therapies. Dr. Hajjar is internationally renowned as a scientific leader in cardiac gene therapy and is credited with founding the field. He currently serves as the Inaugural Director of the Gene and Cell Therapy Institute at Mass General Brigham.
Dr. Hajjar’s academic laboratory has validated numerous cardiac targets, including the cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase (SERCA2a), which led to the initiation and completion of First-in-Human gene therapy trials in patients with heart failure and cardiomyopathies under his guidance. As co-founder of Sardocor, Medera’s clinical development arm, he continues to advance novel therapeutic approaches for cardiac diseases.
With over 500 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Hajjar has received numerous prestigious awards throughout his career, including the Young Investigator Award of the American Heart Association, Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Award of AstraZeneca, Distinguished Alumnus Award from Johns Hopkins University, American Heart Association Distinguished Achievement Award, and Thomas W. Smith Award from the American Heart Association.
Dr. Hajjar obtained his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology.
