Matthew Vander Heiden, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Matthew Vander Heiden currently serves as an MPM BioImpact Advisor. He is the Director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the Lester Wolfe Chair in Molecular Biology, and a Professor in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and a practicing Medical Oncologist and Instructor of Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.
Matthew received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago, where he worked in the laboratory of Craig Thompson. He completed clinical training in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a Hematology-Oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Massachusetts General Hospital program. He was a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Lewis Cantley at Harvard Medical School, where he was supported by a Mel Karmazin Fellowship from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.
In 2010, Matthew joined the MIT faculty. His laboratory studies how metabolism is regulated to meet the needs of cells in different physiological situations. A major focus of his research is the role of metabolism in cancer, and particularly how metabolic pathways support cancer cell proliferation and survival. Using a combination of biochemistry, molecular biology and mouse models, the aim of the Vander Heiden laboratory is to understand how metabolism influences different stages of tumor biology with a goal to improve cancer treatment in the clinic. Matthew’s work has been recognized by some awards, including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Sciences, the AACR Gertrude B. Elion Award, an NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, and election to the ASCI, AAP, and European Academy of Cancer Sciences. He serves on the scientific advisory boards of the Yale Cancer Center, the Salk Institute Cancer Center, and the Wistar Cancer Center. In addition, Matthew is a member of the scientific advisory boards of several companies including Agios Pharmaceuticals, iTeos Therapeutics, Sage Therapeutics, Lime Therapeutics, Pretzel Therapeutics, and Auron Therapeutics, where he is also an academic founder.