Dr. Jonathan Lai
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry
Joined the faculty: December 2007
Previous position: Postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School
Why I Chose Einstein
Research at Einstein
is very focused on having a clinical application. That philosophy was important to me—to be
thinking on a daily
basis how the discoveries I’m making could affect the patient.
What I Love About Teaching and Working Here
The diversity among graduate students. I see that as a huge benefit in my lab. My students
have a wide range of
experience, from hard-core chemistry to extremely biological expertise. The more viewpoints we
can have on a
problem, the more likely we are to create a solution.
What’s Most Exciting About My Research at the Moment
One of things in the HIV field that’s depressing right now is that two major vaccine candidates
have failed in the last
few years. But with these failures, there is also an opportunity to look at things from a fresh
perspective. There’s been
an influx of new investigators from different fields trying to bring in new ideas, making it a very
interesting area in
which to work right now.