Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center
Charleston, MA

Daniel Haber, M.D., Ph.D
Director, Cancer Center
Massachusetts General Hospital

T.J. Martell Foundation Funded Research at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center

Through the generosity of the T.J. Martell Foundation, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center has launched a research program on new molecularly targeted treatments for cancer. Recent discoveries by our research group have shown that a specific form of lung cancer, more common in women, in nonsmokers, and in individuals of Asian background carries molecular mutations in a gene called EGFR, rendering it uniquely sensitive to a new class of drugs (Iressa and Tarceva) that target this gene. In further studies, we have examined the mechanisms by which lung cancers that are initially highly sensitive to these drugs become resistant, and our work has led to the testing of “second generation” drugs that may be effective in such resistant cases. Ongoing studies in our Center for Molecular Therapeutics are aimed at finding genetic clues within different types of cancers that point to similar opportunities for “targeted therapies”. We are currently testing a new drug which targets the MET gene, and which may be uniquely effective in a subset of gastric cancers that have genetic abnormalities in this gene, and we plan to extend these studies to a broad range of different cancers.

The MGH Cancer Center is the largest single provider of cancer care in New England and is home to laboratory and clinical researchers from diverse medical specialties who battle against adult and pediatric cancers, through integrated clinical disease centers. Recent scientific discoveries include the link between specific mutations in lung cancer and their response to new classes of molecularly targeted drugs; the report of a new "genetic signature" which can be applied to breast cancer biopsies and predict the likelihood of response to the hormone tamoxifen; new approaches to the treatment of brain and spinal tumors using proton therapy and to the diagnosis and staging of cancer using functional magnetic resonance imaging. New Investigators recruited to the MGH Cancer Center are tackling the application of new aromatase inhibitors in the prevention of breast cancer, the use of computational biology in the study of tumor cell behavior, and the study of presumptive cancer stem cells. These new investigators join an outstanding and highly interactive group of clinicians and scientists, dedicated to the study and eradication of human cancer.