Rate My Professor Boris Lenhard

Professor Boris Lenhard is Professor of Computational Biology in the Institute of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. He serves as Head of the Computational Regulatory Genomics group at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences. His research examines gene regulation at the genome-wide level using computational genomics and epigenomics. The development of complex organisms depends on precise regulation of gene activity across cells in time and space, ensuring proper development and function, with disruptions leading to disease. Lenhard's work centers on the structure and function of gene promoters, the function and genomic distribution of gene regulatory elements, transcription factor functions, transcriptional regulatory networks, associations between regulatory modes and epigenetic marks, functional classification of core promoters, methods to assign regulatory elements to target genes, and the role of the epigenome in guiding development.

Lenhard has made significant contributions to the field through development of computational methods and resources such as multiple updates to the JASPAR open-access database of transcription factor binding profiles, including JASPAR 2020, JASPAR 2018, and JASPAR 2016: a major expansion. Key publications include 'Two independent transcription initiation codes overlap on vertebrate core promoters' (Nature, 2014), 'SLIC-CAGE: high-resolution transcription start site mapping using nanogram-levels of total RNA' (Genome Research, 2018), 'Topologically associating domains and Metazoan clusters of extreme noncoding conservation' (Nature Communications, 2017), and contributions to FANTOM5 consortium's 'The transcriptional landscape of the mammalian genome'. He was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2025 and received a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award in Science in 2015. His research has received funding from BBSRC and other sources. Lenhard's publications exceed 300, with over 47,900 citations.