The student invited Distinguished Luminary Speaker, Dr. Jeffrey A. Engelman, who is the Director of Molecular Therapies at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, presented the 2015 Luminary Speaker Seminar on November 3. The title of Dr. Engelman’s talk was “Overcoming Resistance to Targeted Therapies: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Dr. Engelman’s research has focused on developing strategies to perturb signal transduction to treat cancers. These studies have focused on receptor tyrosine kinases, the PI3K and MAPK signaling pathways, and the BH3 family members regulating apoptotic responses. In particular, his work has emphasized understanding the basis for sensitivity and resistance to kinase inhibitors in cancers. More recently, his research has explored the variety of mechanisms employed by cancers to become resistant to effective targeted therapies. His work encompasses both laboratory models and clinical specimens. The goal of this research is to unleash the full potential of targeted therapies to improve the lives of patients with cancer.
Dr. Engelman received his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Northwestern University and his MD and PhD degrees from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Engelman completed his medical residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He joined the Harvard Medical School faculty and Massachusetts General Hospital in 2005. Dr. Engelman was elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2011. Named one of World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds in 2014 by Thomson-Reuters.
Dr. Engelman is the Director of both Thoracic Oncology and Molecular Therapies at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center as well as the Laurel Schwartz Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard University School of Medicine. We were honored to have him come and give the Distinguished Luminary Speaker Seminar for us this year.