Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer in the United States. Better understanding of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes involved in lung cancer hold the promise of improving clinical care of afflicted patients.

Prior work from our group has focused on transcription factors involved in lung cancer and mechanisms of sensitivity/resistance of oncogene kinases (such as EGFR, ALK, ROS1, MET, BRAF, RET, MET, ERBB2, NTRK, KRAS among others) to tyrosine kinase inhibitors in non-small-cell lung cancer.

Our group is also part of the clinical research effort at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DFHCC), with a focus in lung cancer, tumor genomic biomarkers and immune checkpoint inhibitors. We are supported by both federal and non-federal grants, and are part of the NIH/NCI SPORE in Lung Cancer at DFHCC.

One of the main focuses of the DFHCC Lung Cancer Program, in conjunction with the Cancer Clinical Trials Office (CCTO) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), is to conduct clinical trials that will establish the future evidence-based strategies to manage local, locally advanced and advanced lung cancers.

(co-investigators at BIDMC: Susumu Kobayashi, MD, PhD, Daniel G. Tenen, MD, Sidharta P. Gangadharan, MD; Adnan Majid, MD; Paul A. VanderLaan, MD, PhD and Deepa Rangachari, MD)
(co-investigators at DFCI: Pasi A. Janne, MD, PhD; Michael Eck, MD, PhD; Matthew Meyerson, MD, PhD; David A. Barbie, MD; Mark Awad, MD, PhD; and Bruce E. Johnson, MD)
(co-investigators at MGH: Lecia V. Sequist, MD, MPH; Zofia Piotrowska, MD; Beow Yeap, ScD; and Justin Gainor, MD)