Cancer

The Broad’s Cancer Program has played a central role in the precision medicine revolution in cancer research and treatment. Because of this revolution, we can now envision a future where most cancers will be treated like chronic conditions, managed with biologically informed treatments based on a patient’s detailed genetic information.

But our work is not done. Drawing from the extraordinary Boston research ecosystem and beyond, Broad cancer researchers are now focused on overcoming the toughest challenges in cancer, including drug resistance, difficult-to-treat and rare cancers, and making cancer genomes clinically interpretable. In partnership with academia and industry, we are tackling these hurdles by developing breakthrough technologies to discover new drug targets and potential therapies—including immunotherapies—scalable strategies for predicting therapeutic combinations to combat resistance, and systematic methods to interrogate and interpret cancer genomes.

At the Gerstner Center for Cancer Diagnostics, Broad scientists are pioneering new diagnostic technologies, including less invasive techniques such as blood biopsies, with the goal of detecting cancer earlier, when it is more treatable. We work closely with the Center for Development of Therapeutics at the Broad to pioneer innovative therapeutic approaches and de-risk drug leads to the point where industry partners would be willing to take them on. These are just some ways Broad researchers continue to transform the understanding and treatment of cancer.