Ludwig Center at Harvard

Research teams based in the Ludwig Center at Harvard, the home of the Ludwig Tumor Atlas, are also active in the development and application of spatial profiling methods. These Harvard-based projects focus primarily on understanding the origins of innate, adaptive and acquired resistance to therapy, the focus of the Harvard Ludwig Center and primary barrier to more effective treatment of patients with targeted drugs and immunotherapies.

People

Jon Aster, MD, PhD

is the Michael Gimbrone Professor of Pathology and Chief of the Division of Hematopathology at Brigham Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School; he is currently acting chair of the pathology department. His research focuses on the role of Notch signaling in cancer and hematopoiesis and his lab has played a key role in modeling Notch-induced leukemia in humans and detection of frequent Notch mutations in human T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This has lead to ongoing attempts to target Notch in cancers.

Alan D'Andrea, MD

is the Fuller American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. His research focuses on DNA damage and repair, chromosome instability and cancer susceptibility with a particular emphasis on Fanconi Anemia/BRCA Pathway Fanconi Anemia (FA). His group also studies how BRCA deficient cancers can be targeted therapeutically.

Ana Garrido-Castro, MD

is an instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and member of the Dana-Farber Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers. Her research focuses on the molecular understanding of metastatic triple negative breast cancer and the phenomenon of subtype switching. She is actively involved in clinical trials aiming to improve breast cancer therapy.

Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD

is the Robert and Karen Hale Distinguished Chair in Surgical Oncology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Director of its Research in Breast Surgery and Breast Immuno-Oncology program at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. Her research focuses on clinical and laboratory study of breast cancer therapy with a focus on clinical trials of immunotherapy.

Scott Rodig, MD, PhD

is an Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Tissue Biomarker Laboratory of the Center for Immuno-Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His research focuses on the development and application of novel tissue-based biomarker assays to improve the diagnosis of and to guide therapy for human cancer.  He has developed new diagnostic tests to direct clinical trial enrollment and personalized therapy for Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma lung cancer, and melanoma.

Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH

is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Associate Director for the Susan F Smith Center for Women’s Cancers and Director of Clinical Trials Breast Cancer at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Institute. Her research focuses on the development of novel therapies for the treatment of breast cancer, with a focus on metastatic, drug-resistant, and recurrent disease. As the Breast Cancer Leader for the Early Drug Development Center (EDDC) and Center for Immuno-Oncology (CIO) she has led many clinical trials involving new combinations of immunotherapy medicines.

David Weinstock, MD

is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Lavine Family Chair for Preventative Cancer Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His research focuses on lymphoid neoplasms and the validation of new therapeutic targets, development of prognostic markers, and translation of laboratory studies into better outcomes for patients with lymphoma and leukemia.