Haber named HHMI Patient-Oriented Researcher

Daniel Haber, MD, PhD, (below) director of the MGH Cancer Center, has been named a Patient-Oriented Researcher by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Haber is one of 15 investigators selected from 242 applicants in a nationwide competition. The award will support Haber's studies examining how genetic mutations that lead to the development of cancer may also make tumors susceptible to treatment with particular drugs, an approach known as targeted therapy.
Photo: Darren McCollester/PR Newswire©HHMI

Traditionally supporting researchers focused on the genetic, molecular and cellular basis of disease, the HHMI initiated a grant award in 2002 for physician-scientists who combine their scientific investigations with direct patient care. Among this first group of Patient-Oriented Researchers was Bruce Walker, MD, director of the Partners AIDS Research Center at the MGH.

Haber's most recent discovery stemmed from what he has described as a virtual "eureka moment" in 2003, when reading a Boston Globe article on an MGH lung cancer patient whose tumor was nearly completely controlled by Iressa, a drug
that was not successful for most patients. Haber knew that the leukemia drug Gleevec worked by targeting a specific mutation to which cancers may become "addicted," and he wondered if the selective responses to Iressa might also reflect a specific mutation that distinguishes susceptible forms of lung cancer.

Collaborating with a group of MGH Cancer Center researchers including Thomas Lynch, MD, now chief of MGH Hematology/Oncology, and Jeff Settleman, PhD, recently appointed scientific director, Haber's team demonstrated that particular mutations in the EGFR gene, which are targeted by Iressa, define a "nonsmokers" type of lung cancer that has an extraordinary response to Iressa and related "smart drugs." Their 2004 New England Journal of Medicine report has had a major impact on the treatment of lung cancer and the broader field of genetically-directed therapies.

"Our current work is aimed at finding agents that may overcome the resistance that lung cancers develop to this first generation of inhibitors and identifying other types of cancer with genetically susceptible subsets," says Haber. "This has been a terrific team effort, from both laboratory and clinical standpoints, and I expect the Howard Hughes support will have a very big impact on our ability to move forward at this critical time in developing cancer therapeutics."