Andrea Baccarelli
· Dean of the Faculty Office of the DeanHarvard University · Public Health
Active 1999–2026
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About
Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, is the Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an internationally recognized scientist and thought leader. His pioneering work has transformed understanding of how environmental factors reshape the human epigenome and impact long-term health. Dr. Baccarelli has explored diverse molecular mechanisms, from epitranscriptomics to the microbiome, helping guide public policies and advance global health innovations. He is recognized as one of the world’s most highly cited scientists, with influence spanning research, education, and policy. Before assuming his role as Dean of the Faculty in January 2024, he served as the Leon Hess Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and as president of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. He previously worked at Harvard Chan School as an Associate Professor from 2010 through 2016. Dr. Baccarelli holds an MD from the University of Perugia in Italy, an MS in Epidemiology from the University of Turin, and a PhD from the University of Milan. His research focuses on the impact of environmental exposures on health, with a particular emphasis on epigenetics and molecular mechanisms influencing disease.
Research topics
- Medicine
- Biology
- Genetics
- Internal medicine
- Physiology
- Bioinformatics
- Environmental health
- Andrology
- Computer Science
- Ecology
Selected publications
CA A Cancer Journal for Clinicians · 2020-08-25 · 838 citations
reviewOpen accessOutdoor air pollution is a major contributor to the burden of disease worldwide. Most of the global population resides in places where air pollution levels, because of emissions from industry, power generation, transportation, and domestic burning, considerably exceed the World Health Organization's health-based air-quality guidelines. Outdoor air pollution poses an urgent worldwide public health challenge because it is ubiquitous and has numerous serious adverse human health effects, including…
eLife · 2020-05-05 · 657 citations
articleOpen accessBiological aging is the gradual, progressive decline in system integrity that occurs with advancing chronological age, causing morbidity and disability. Measurements of the pace of aging are needed as surrogate endpoints in trials of therapies designed to prevent disease by slowing biological aging. We report a blood-DNA-methylation measure that is sensitive to variation in pace of biological aging among individuals born the same year. We first modeled change-over-time in 18 biomarkers tracking…
Environmental Health · 2025-08-13 · 48 citations
reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorrespondingBACKGROUND: Acetaminophen is the most commonly used over-the-counter pain and fever medication taken during pregnancy, with > 50% of pregnant women using acetaminophen worldwide. Numerous well-designed studies have indicated that pregnant mothers exposed to acetaminophen have children diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), at higher rates than children of pregnant mothers who were not expos…
How exposomic tools complement and enrich genomic research
Cell Genomics · 2025-07-24 · 5 citations
reviewOpen accessBecause genetics and the environment interact to drive gene expression, we propose that exposomics must now be incorporated into the multi-omics paradigm to complete the overall biological pathway. Exposomics' groundbreaking tools and life-course framework holistically characterize non-genetic (environment) components of chronic diseases and integrate with multi-omics. This work brings forward the importance of the human exposome as a major driver of gene/protein expression across the life cours…
Mitochondrial DNA Copy Numbers and Lung Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
International Journal of Molecular Sciences · 2025-07-10 · 3 citations
reviewOpen accessLC continues to be the leading cause of cancer mortality globally, among both males and females, representing a major public health challenge. The impact of mitochondria on human health and disease is a rapidly growing focus in scientific research, due to their critical roles in cellular survival and death. Mitochondria play an important role in controlling imperative cellular parameters, and alterations in mtDNAcn might be crucial for LC development. MtDNAcn has been studied as a possible marke…
Recent grants
NIH · $3.3M · 2018
NIH · $376k · 2015
NIH · $2.7M · 2018–2023
Frequent coauthors
- 535 shared
Lifang Hou
Northwestern University
- 489 shared
Pier Alberto Bertazzi
- 479 shared
Pantel Vokonas
Boston University
- 387 shared
Joel Schwartz
Harvard University
- 344 shared
Letizia Tarantini
University of Milan
- 328 shared
Valentina Bollati
University of Milan
- 298 shared
Robert O. Wright
- 263 shared
David Sparrow
VA Boston Healthcare System
Education
- 2003
PhD, Environmental and Occupational Health
University of Milan
- 1999
MPH, Epidemiology
University of Turin
- 1995
MD, Medicine
University of Perugia
Awards & honors
- Elected to the National Academy of Medicine
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