Frank Ajl Scheer

I am a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Director of the Medical Chronobiology Program (MCP) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). My research is primarily focused on medical chronobiology, including investigations of the underlying physiological mechanisms and therapeutic strategies to treat chronobiological disorders. My lab is focused on the influence of the endogenous circadian system and its disruption—such as with shift work—on cardiovascular, pulmonary, and metabolic regulation and disease states, including hypertension, asthma, obesity and diabetes. This, primarily, basic and translational human research is aimed both at the physiological mechanisms and therapeutic strategies of medical chronobiology. I have co-founded and currently direct the MCP, an interdisciplinary research program at BWH to foster the translational research in sleep and circadian biology to understand the basis behind time-variant changes in disease severity, the effects of circadian misalignment (typical in night shift workers), and their interaction with genetics (e.g., the common MTNR1B variant). Understanding the biological basis of these changes across the day and night and their interaction with genetics may help in the development of personalized and time-based behavioral, environmental, and pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. appropriately timed meals, exercise or melatonin to target specific phases of the body clock) to prevent, treat, and/or manage disease.