Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Nikhil Wagle, M.D..
Is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is a member of the Center for Cancer Precision Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Wagle leads a translational research program in the field of breast cancer genomics and precision (or “personalized”) cancer medicine. The major goals of his work are to better understand the biology of metastatic breast cancer and to develop new ways to overcome or prevent drug resistance in patients with advanced breast cancer. Wagle’s research also focuses on developing approaches for cancer precision medicine, including technology for clinical sequencing as well as novel approaches for the analysis and interpretation of genomic information for use by clinicians and patients. He also works on understanding mechanisms of extraordinary responses to cancer therapies by studying so-called exceptional responders—patients with exquisite sensitivity or unexpected durable responses to targeted agents. Ultimately, through all of these approaches his research aims to identify characteristics of tumors that might improve clinical decision-making for patients with advanced cancer.

He also leads The Metastatic Breast Cancer Project(mbcproject.org), a nationwide direct-to-patient research initiative that seeks to empower patients with advanced breast cancer around the U.S. to accelerate cancer research through sharing their samples and clinical information. The project’s outreach program, developed in collaboration with advocacy organizations and patients, serves to connect thousands of patients around the country with metastatic breast cancer research, allowing them to participate regardless of where they live.
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Wagle received his undergraduate degree in biochemical sciences from Harvard College and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He completed his residency training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he also served as chief medical resident, and completed his fellowship training in hematology/oncology in the Dana-Farber/Partners program. Wagle is a recipient several awards and honors, including a Young Investigator Award from the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the 2013 Landon Foundation-AACR INNOVATOR Award for Research in Personalized Cancer Medicine. His work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Discovery, and Nature Medicine.