David Tuveson
David Arthur Tuveson (born January 1, 1966) is an American cancer biologist and is currently a professor as well as The Cancer Center Director and The Director of the Cancer Therapeutics Initiative at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Dr. Tuveson is also the Chief Scientist for the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research. He is known for developing some of the first mouse models of pancreatic cancer and more recently, for his work developing pancreatic cancer organoids. Education and training. David Tuveson received a B.S. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987. He received an M.D.  and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1994, where his Ph.D. adviser was Douglas Fearon. He completed a residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital from 1994-1997. From 1997-2000, he pursued a Fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. During this time, he also performed postdoctoral research in mouse models of lung cancer in the laboratory of Tyler Jacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Career. Following completion of his fellowship training, Tuveson started his own laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was Assistant Professor of Medicine from 2002 -2006. In 2006, he moved to the Cambridge Research Institute, where he was a Senior Group Leader and a Professor of Pancreatic Cancer Medicine. In 2012, he took a position as a group leader and The Deputy Director of the Cancer Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He is a member of the Editorial Board for "Oncogene". Research. During his postdoctoral training in the Jacks Laboratory, Tuveson learned how to engineer mouse models to study human cancer. During this time, he also studied gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), and worked with Dr. George Demetri to develop imatinib as a treatment for  GIST. When he started his own laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, Tuveson developed some of the first genetically engineered mouse models to aid in the study of pancreatic cancer. Using these mice, Tuveson has made several important discoveries in the biology of pancreatic cancer, including the work that contributed to the idea that the stromal cells of pancreatic tumors act as a barrier for therapies. He later partnered with Hans Clevers to develop pancreatic cancer organoids – tumor cells taken from a human patient and cultured in the laboratory as three-dimensional spheres. He is working with the National Cancer  Institute to develop organoids for use in personalized medicine approaches to treating cancer. Honors and awards. David Tuveson was given an AACR-PanCAN Career Development Award in Pancreatic Cancer research in 2003. He was also the recipient of an M.L. Smith Award in 2003 and a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar Award in 2004. He has also received a Distinguished Scholar Award from the Lustgarten Foundation. Major publications. Tuveson has an h-index of 99 according to Google Scholar. Some of his most important publications are: