Matthew Meyerson | |
---|---|
Born | Boston, Massachusetts, US | June 4, 1963
Parent(s) | Martin Meyerson Margy Meyerson |
Academic background | |
Education | BSc, chemistry and physics, 1985, MD, 1993, PhD, 1994, Harvard University |
Thesis | Human cyclin-dependent kinases and cell cycle regulation (1994) |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Dana–Farber Cancer Institute Foundation Medicine |
Matthew Langer Meyerson (born June 4,1963) is an American pathologist and the Charles A. Dana Chair in Human Cancer Genetics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. [1] He is also director of the Center for Cancer Genomics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, [2] and the Director of Cancer Genomics at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. [3]
Meyerson was born on June 4,1963,in Boston,Massachusetts [4] to parents Martin Meyerson and Margy Meyerson. His father became the first Jewish president of a major university upon accepting an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania. [5] Meyerson and his siblings were subsequently raised in Philadelphia where his older sister was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and mental illness. This played a major role in Meyerson pursuing a career in medicine. [6]
Following high school,Meyerson completed his Bachelor's degree at Harvard University. During college,he conducted research on quinones in Leslie Dutton's laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and on enzyme evolution in Steven Benner's laboratory at Harvard. Upon completing his undergraduate degree in 1985,Meyerson spent a year in Japan at the University of Kyoto before beginning began medical school. [5] During his third year at Harvard Medical School,while doing a rotation at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH),he became interested in molecular biology revolution and cancer research. [7] He then completed a residency in clinical pathology at MGH and a research fellowship with Robert Weinberg at the Whitehead Institute. [8] Based on Weinberg's work,Meyerson and Christopher M. Counter identified the telomerase catalytic subunit gene in 1997. [9]
Meyerson joined the faculty at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) in 1998 where he continued to focus on using genomic approaches to understand the biology and genetics of human lung carcinomas. [8] As an assistant professor,Meyerson co-developed a new mathematical tool that uses the process of elimination to discover microbes in human tissue. Through studies,it was determined that the tool successfully detected a specific type of human papillomavirus in cervical cells. [10] Following this development,Meyerson collaborated with fellow Harvard researchers to identify mutations in lung cancer that could be targeted therapeutically. [9] This led to a collaborative study between DFCI and Japan to research patients with lung cancer. The scientists found that patients whose lung cancers harbor a malfunctioning version of EGFR protein responded well to the drug gefitinib. This was the first successful study to support an approach that seeks a systematic route to the development of new cancer therapies. [11] In 2007,Meyerson and Levi Garraway published a paper detailing a method for large-panel testing of 238 DNA mutations. [12] This subsequently led to the establishment of Foundation Medicine. [13] In 2009,he received the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research for the discovery of mutations in lung cancer cells. [14]
In 2011,Meyerson's made another discovery that advanced the study of cancer;colorectal cancer tissue contains high levels of several types of bacteria,most notably Fusobacterium nucleatum. [15] His laboratory also led to the development of the first targeted therapy lung cancer drug. As a result of these discoveries,Meyerson was recognized by Breathe Deep Boston as a Walk Honoree in 2014. [16] Two years later,Meyerson was the recipient of the 2016 Han-Mo Koo Memorial Award for his contributions to the understanding of cancer genomics and targeted therapies. [17] In 2018,Meyerson was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for the "discovery of EGFR mutations in lung cancer and their ability to predict responsiveness to EGFR inhibitors,thereby helping to establish the current paradigm of precision cancer therapy." [18]
During the COVID-19 pandemic,Meyerson co-authored Pervasive generation of non-canonical subgenomic RNAs by SARS-CoV-2 with Jason Nomburg and James A. DeCaprio. [19] He was also elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science as someone who has scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. [20] In 2021,Meyerson was recognized as a Giant of Cancer in Prevention/Genetics by Onclive. [21]
Meyerson married his wife,fellow Harvard student Sandra Hoenig,in a Jewish ceremony in 1988. [22]
Gefitinib,sold under the brand name Iressa,is a medication used for certain breast,lung and other cancers. Gefitinib is an EGFR inhibitor,like erlotinib,which interrupts signaling through the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in target cells. Therefore,it is only effective in cancers with mutated and overactive EGFR,but resistances to gefitinib can arise through other mutations. It is marketed by AstraZeneca and Teva.
Massachusetts General Hospital is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston,Massachusetts,United States. It is the third-oldest general hospital in the United States and has a capacity of 999 beds. With Brigham and Women's Hospital,it is one of the two founding members of Mass General Brigham,the largest healthcare provider in Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Hospital houses the largest hospital-based research program in the world,the Mass General Research Institute,with an annual research budget of more than $1 billion in 2019. It is currently ranked as the eighth-best hospital in the United States by U.S. News &World Report.
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is the second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the largest hospital in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston,Massachusetts. Along with Massachusetts General Hospital,it is one of the two founding members of Mass General Brigham,the largest healthcare provider in Massachusetts. Robert Higgins,MD,MSHA serves as the hospital's current president.
Erlotinib,sold under the brand name Tarceva among others,is a medication used to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and pancreatic cancer. Specifically it is used for NSCLC with mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) —either an exon 19 deletion (del19) or exon 21 (L858R) substitution mutation —which has spread to other parts of the body. It is taken by mouth.
Dana–Farber Cancer Institute is a comprehensive cancer treatment and research institution in Boston,Massachusetts. Dana–Farber is the founding member of Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center,Harvard's Comprehensive Cancer Center designated by the National Cancer Institute,and one of the 15 clinical affiliates and research institutes of Harvard Medical School.
KRAS is a gene that provides instructions for making a protein called K-Ras,a part of the RAS/MAPK pathway. The protein relays signals from outside the cell to the cell's nucleus. These signals instruct the cell to grow and divide (proliferate) or to mature and take on specialized functions (differentiate). It is called KRAS because it was first identified as a viral oncogene in the KirstenRAt Sarcoma virus. The oncogene identified was derived from a cellular genome,so KRAS,when found in a cellular genome,is called a proto-oncogene.
John Quackenbush is an American computational biologist and genome scientist. He is a professor of biostatistics and computational biology and a professor of cancer biology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI),as well as the director of its Center for Cancer Computational Biology (CCCB). Quackenbush also holds an appointment as a professor of computational biology and bioinformatics in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Osimertinib,sold under the brand name Tagrisso,is a medication used to treat non-small-cell lung carcinomas with specific mutations. It is a third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor.
William G. Kaelin Jr. is an American Nobel laureate physician-scientist. He is a professor of medicine at Harvard University and the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. His laboratory studies tumor suppressor proteins. In 2016,Kaelin received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the AACR Princess Takamatsu Award. He also won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2019 along with Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza.
Nathanael S. Gray is a Krishnan-Shah Family Professor of chemical and systems biology at Stanford University and director of cancer therapeutics programme at Stanford University School of Medicine. Previously he was a Nancy Lurie Marks Professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and professor of cancer biology at Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. Gray is also co-founder,science advisory board member (SAB) and equity holder in C4 Therapeutics,Gatekeeper,Syros,Petra,B2S,Aduro,Jengu,Allorion,Inception Therapeutics,and Soltego. C4 Therapeutics,which offered IPO in 2020,was founded based on the ground-breaking research of Jay Bradner,current president of Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR),and of Nathanael S. Gray,while he was professor at Harvard Medical School. Before moving to Stanford University,Nathanael S. Gray created Center for Protein Degradation at Harvard Medical School with $80 million agreement with Deerfield Management venture capital firm. In 2020,Gray Lab permanently moved to Stanford University,that was stated by Stuart Schreiber,co-founder of Broad Institute as "Stanford's huge gain".
Amit Dutt is an Indian scientist,geneticist and the principal investigator at Advanced Centre for Treatment,Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) of Tata Memorial Centre. Known for his studies on Fibroblast growth factor receptor,Dutt is a Wellcome Trust / DBT India Alliance Intermediate Fellow. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research,the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research,awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology,one of the highest Indian science awards,for his contributions to medical sciences in 2017.
Catherine J. Wu is an American physician-scientist who studies oncology. She is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. Her research focuses on longitudinal studies of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
Mobocertinib,sold under the brand name Exkivity,is used for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.
Scott Allen Armstrong is an American pediatric oncologist and cancer biologist focused on chromatin-based control of gene expression in cancer and therapeutic discovery. Armstrong and his team were the first to isolate rare leukemia stem cells in a mouse model of leukemia.
Levi A. Garraway is an American oncologist. His research team was among the first to adapt genomics technologies to enable scalable,high-throughput clinical approaches to cancer gene mutation profiling. As a result,he was inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation,American Association for Cancer Research,and National Academy of Medicine.
Margaret Ann Shipp is an American hematologic oncologist. She is the Douglas S. Miller Chair in Hodgkin Lymphoma at Harvard Medical School. Shipp is an elected Fellow of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and National Academy of Medicine.
Alexander (Sasha) Gusev is a computational biologist and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Benjamin Levine Ebert is the Chair of Medical Oncology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and the George P. Canellos,MD and Jean S. Canellos Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Nancy Lin is an American oncologist who works at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research considers new diagnostic strategies and treatment pathways for HER2 positive breast cancer.
Personalized genomics is the human genetics-derived study of analyzing and interpreting individualized genetic information by genome sequencing to identify genetic variations compared to the library of known sequences. International genetics communities have spared no effort from the past and have gradually cooperated to prosecute research projects to determine DNA sequences of the human genome using DNA sequencing techniques. The methods that are the most commonly used are whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing. Both approaches are used to identify genetic variations. Genome sequencing became more cost-effective over time,and made it applicable in the medical field,allowing scientists to understand which genes are attributed to specific diseases.