Kevin Eggan

Kevin Eggan
Born	1974 Normal, Illinois
Nationality	United States
Institutions	Harvard University
Doctoral advisor	Rudolf Jaenisch
Known for	stem cell

Kevin Eggan (born 1974 in Normal, Illinois) is a Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University, known for his work in stem cell research (also known as "therapeutic cloning"), and as a spokesperson for stem cell research in the United States. He was a 2006 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship (sometimes nicknamed the "genius grant"). In 2005, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

Eggan grew up in Normal, Illinois, the son of Chris and Larry Eggan and one of five children, his father being a math professor at Illinois State University.

After completing his bachelor's degree in microbiology at the University of Illinois, he applied to medical school to become a doctor, but his doubts caused him to defer in favor of a two-year internship with drug company Amgen at the National Institutes of Health. In 1998 he applied to study for a Ph.D. in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, arriving there shortly after Dolly the Sheep gained worldwide attention as the world's first cloned domestic animal.

Eggan began to explore both this process and also the reasons that cloned animals often appeared to develop abnormally, with organ defects and immunological problems – his first contact with stem cell research. After finishing his PhD in 2002, Eggan split his time between a post-doctoral program with genetics pioneer Rudolf Jaenisch and a collaborative project with Richard Axel, a Nobel Prize–winning scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as spending time at the University of Hawaii.

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