Behnoush Hajian, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist I
Behnoush Hajian is a senior scientist I in structural biology and structure-based drug design at the Center for the Development of Therapeutics (CDoT) at the Ó³»´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard, where she works under the direction of Guillaume Poncet-Montange.
Her research combines experimental structural biology methods, such as protein X-ray crystallography, with computational approaches to determine and analyze the three-dimensional structures of proteins. She studies how these proteins interact with biological macromolecules and small-molecule drug candidates.
Through this work, Hajian evaluates novel proteins as potential drug targets and helps identify and optimize compounds for clinical development, with the ultimate goal of advancing new therapeutics to treat human disease. Her projects span multiple disease areas, including adult and pediatric oncology, cardiovascular disorders, and infectious diseases.
Hajian joined the Ó³»´«Ã½ in February 2019 after earning her Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Connecticut (Anderson-Wright Group), where she focused on the structure-based design of antifolates targeting antibiotic-resistant pathogens. She also holds an M.Sc. in biotechnology and a B.Sc. in plant pathology from Shiraz University.
Contact Behnoush Hajian via email at bhajian@broadinstitute.org.
September 2025
