Anthony Letai

Anthony G. Letai is an American cancer researcher and oncologist serving as the director of the National Cancer Institute since 2025. ^[1] He studies cell death in cancer, developing treatments, and identifying predictive biomarkers. ^[1] Letai was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a medical oncologist at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. ^[2]

Education

Letai earned a B.A. in physics from Princeton University. He received an M.D. (1995) and Ph.D. (1993) from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. ^[3] He completed his Ph.D. on the molecular basis of heritable blistering diseases before residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a clinical fellowship in hematology and oncology at Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. Letai began his studies of programmed cell death in cancer in a post-doctoral fellowship before establishing his laboratory at Dana–Farber Cancer Institute to study how apoptosis can be evaded by cancer cells. ^[1]

Personal life

Letai and his wife, Jean, have three children. Their daughter Julie Letai represented Team USA in speed skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics and is a member of U.S. Speedskating's Short Track World Tour Team as it prepares for the 2026 Games in Milan. ^[1]

References

1. "Secretary Kennedy Swears in Dr. Anthony Letai as Director of the National Cancer Institute | National Institutes of Health (NIH)". www.nih.gov. Retrieved 2025-10-01. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
2. Herper, Matthew; Chen, Angus (2025-09-24). "Anthony Letai of Dana-Farber is front-runner to lead National Cancer Institute". STAT. Retrieved 2025-10-01.
3. "New NCI director reflects on training at UChicago". Biological Sciences Division, University of Chicago. 2025-10-21. Retrieved 2025-11-01.

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Institutes of Health.