People

George Coukos, MD, PhD is the Director of the Ludwig Branch at Lausanne and is a globally recognized leader in immunotherapy and tumor immunology, with a focus on ovarian cancer. Dr. Coukos’s research uncovered the existence of spontaneous immune responses in ovarian tumors and described their influence on the severity of disease. His laboratory explores how ovarian cancers are susceptible to immunotherapy and is very involved in the development of novel therapies.

Douglas Hanahan, PhD is a Distinguished Scholar at the Ludwig Branch at Lausanne and is a pioneering molecular biologist and renowned cancer researcher. Dr. Hanahan’s research uses genetically-engineered mouse models (GEMMs) of cancer to investigate the molecular mechanisms of multi-step tumorigenesis, in particular invasion, metastasis, and evasive resistance to targeted therapies, and to translate that knowledge into new therapeutic approaches.

Tyler Jacks, PhD is the Co-Director of the Ludwig Center at MIT and is a world leader in cancer genetics; he is known for his ground-breaking work on the development of genetically-engineered mouse models (GEMMs). Dr. Jacks’s research uses GEMMs to understand the interactions between the immune system and cancer and to translate the finding from mouse cancer models to human cancer to develop therapies to kill cancer cells at metastatic sites and inhibit metastatic spread.

Akash Patnaik, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor within the Section of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago. As a medical oncologist and physician-scientist, Dr. Patnaik leads a translational research program (laboratory and clinical trials) in developmental therapeutics and immuno-oncology, that focuses on targeting oncogenic signaling, DNA repair and innate immune sensing pathways to enhance responsiveness to immunotherapy in advanced prostate and other immune-refractory cancers. In the clinic, he focuses on the treatment of patients with genitourinary cancers, which include prostate, kidney, bladder and testicular cancers.

Joan Brugge, PhD is the Co-Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard and is a renowned expert in cancer biology and the fundamental mechanisms of cancer growth and progression, in breast, ovarian, and other cancer types. Dr. Brugge’s research provides essential insight into understanding the earliest changes that occur in the evolution of breast cancer in women at high risk due to inherited genetic alterations. This involves generating an atlas of the landscape of human and mouse mammary tissues using a variety of single cell technologies including CyCIF. Dr. Brugge’s lab is also interested in resistance mechanisms by which tumor cells escape the impact of cancer therapy to allow us to develop new strategies which can overcome resistance and significantly improve current and emerging cancer therapies.

George Demetri, MD is the Co-Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard and has dedicated his career to translational and clinical research aimed at developing practical therapies from fundamental oncogenic mechanisms to treat molecularly-defined subsets of sarcomas and other cancers. Dr. Demetri’s research has accelerated the development of novel experimental therapeutic agents and has resulted in FDA and worldwide regulatory approval of a dozen new therapeutic agents for cancer.

Jennifer Guerriero, PhD is a Core Member of the Ludwig Tumor Atlas Team and Director of the Breast Immunology Laboratory in the Women’s Cancer Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital focuses on unraveling the complexity of tissue associated macrophages (TAMs). She and her group study the functions, regulation, and developmental identities of TAMs and perform basic science and translational experiments aimed at identifying clinically effective strategies for targeting TAMs, thereby promoting T-cell activation and weakening the immune-suppressive properties of the tumor microenvironment.

Peter Sorger, PhD is Director of the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology (LSP), where most of the work for the Ludwig Tumor Atlas Project is based. Dr. Sorger’s research focuses on two main areas of research: the study of the genomic instability that underlies cancer; and a systems approach to charting mammalian cell signaling and response to anti-cancer drugs. As Principal Investigator of the Ludwig Tumor Atlas Project, Dr. Sorger leads the construction of a multi-dimensional “tumor map” that captures the locations and identities of cancerous, noncancerous, immune, and supporting cells that contribute to tumor evolution, progression and response to therapies.

Sandro Santagata, MD, PhD is a neuropathologist and Principal Investigator of the Ludwig Tumor Atlas Project. Dr. Santagata’s research aims to identify and target vulnerabilities in tumors to improve patient outcome and survival, focusing on primary brain tumors and tumors that metastasize to the brain. Through genomics, chemical biology, and multiplexed imaging his laboratory explores the fundamental mechanisms that allow tumor cells to develop their most malignant features along with colleagues in the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology and the Ludwig Center at Harvard.

Anniina Färkkilä, MD, PhD is a gynecologist and Principal Investigator at the Research Program for Systems Oncology, University of Helsinki, Finland. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in 2019, and recently set up her laboratory at the University of Helsinki. Dr. Färkkilä’s laboratory focuses on understanding the complexity and cell-cell interactions in the tumor microenvironment using highly multiplexed imaging, advanced bioinformatics, and functional models in ovarian cancer. They are particularly interested in uncovering features that delineate the responses to novel combination- and immuno-therapies.