Ludwig Cancer Research is a global community of leading scientists pursuing innovative ways to prevent and control cancer. From basic research to clinical trials, in individual laboratories or as part of international teams, our researchers are tackling the hardest questions, spotting the connections and the possibilities. At Ludwig, we test our work against the one measure that matters — improving human health. Ludwig Cancer Research is a global community of leading scientists pursuing innovative ways to prevent and control cancer. From basic research to clinical trials, in individual laboratories or as part of international teams, our researchers are tackling the hardest questions, spotting the connections and the possibilities. At Ludwig, we test our work against the one measure that matters — improving human health.

  I have devoted my career to translational research in cancer. While a faculty member at Harvard, I defined the role of potentially lethal radiation damage in human tumor cells and the role of this type of DNA repair in radiotherapy. As the head of radiotherapy at the Dana Farber/Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, my team was the first group of investigators to use induction chemotherapy in the treatment of head and neck cancer. I then moved to the University of Chicago, where my team made seminal discoveries in basic signal transduction mechanisms after ionizing radiation exposure, and in separate studies discovered that mechanisms of radiation resistance/sensitivity are mediated by cytokine activation in tumors. Combining these concepts we conceived "genetic radiotherapy.”  In this bench-to-bedside application of a transcriptional targeting gene therapy paradigm, radiation activates DNA sequences from a radio (or chemo) inducible promoter, in this case the CArG elements from the EGR-1 gene that are cloned upstream of a cDNA for a toxin, (TNFα). Commercialized as TNFerade (GenVec) this genetic construct has been studied in phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials. We also discovered that genes in the Stat 1 interferon pathway mediate resistance to ionizing radiation and some chemotherapeutic agents and contribute to tumor metastasis. A subset of these genes forms the basis for a predictive gene signature for women with breast cancer who receive adjuvant radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy radiotherapy. Together with colleagues at the University of Chicago, I have recently been investigating the relationship between radiotherapy and immunotherapy and how to optimize both. We are also investigating the clinical and molecular basis of oligometastases of subset metastases curable with localized therapy. We have conducted several clinical trials using stereotactic body radiotherapy for oligometastatic disease and have developed the basis of a microRNA classifier to identify patients with oligometastasis.