The Ultimate List of Leaders in Life Sciences
The 2024 STATUS List features 50 influential people shaping the future of health and life sciences across biotech, medicine, health care, policy, and health tech. The list is wide-ranging: from executives and VCs who set their industries’ priorities, to scientists expanding the scope of CRISPR technology, to researchers determined to eliminate racial bias from clinical algorithms.
Some are big names you’ve surely heard of; others behind-the-scenes players, trying to shake up the status quo. We didn’t shy away from leaders who are controversial. What these 50 people have in common is their impact over the past year, and why they’re worth our readers’ attention in the year ahead.
This list is necessarily subjective. It’s the product of a months-long (and sometimes painstaking) nomination and judging process involving editors and reporters at STAT. We welcome readers’ thoughts on who they would select and why. We hope the list will spark fresh conversations about the changemakers who are driving headlines in health and medicine.
Alex Keuroghlian, MD MPH
A top queer health researcher, Alex Keuroghlian leads educational efforts on gender-affirming care for physicians across the U.S. — thereby helping to increase sensitivity and awareness as well as educating primary health care providers about topics like managing gender-affirming hormones. “We make gender-affirming care specialty care, and that automatically creates barriers in terms of access and a bottleneck,” they told STAT last year. As more states consider legislation restricting trans health care access for minors and even adults, Keuroghlian — who also teaches medical students at Harvard about gender-affirming care and taking care of LGBTQ+ patients more broadly — will become an even more high-profile expert on related issues.
Alex Keuroghlian, MD MPH is the Michele and Howard J Kessler Chair and Director of the MGH Division of Public and Community Psychiatry and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In addition, he is the Director of the MGH Gender Identity Program, Director of Education and Training Programs at the Fenway Institute, and Director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center.
