News from the Hale Family Center
2025-12 OncLive's December feature discussed how Brian Wolpin's passion for science, patient care, and collaborative research has helped Dana-Farber and the Hale Center develop new strategies in early detection and therapy resistance in pancreatic cancer. Read the full article here.
2025-12 Nature Medicine named the phase III clinical trial of daraxonrasib, Revolution Medicine’s RAS(ON) inhibitor, currently in trials for the treatment of metastatic PDAC, one of the 11 clinical trials that will shape medicine in 2026. The trial, led by Brian Wolpin in collaboration with other investigators within the Hale Center and 60 nationally and internationally-based cancer centers, will evaluate the efficacy of this promising therapeutic in extending progression-free and overall survival in patients with advanced PDAC carrying the most common mutations in KRAS.
2025-11 The Detroit News spotlighted Revolution Medicine's promising experimental cancer drug, daraxonrasib. Brian Wolpin and members of the Hale Center have high hopes that this could be the "turning point" and the "foundation on which we can really build effective treatments." Read the full article here.
2025-11 Will-Freed Pastor, together with Megan Insco, organized the 2025 DFCI Molecular and Cellular Oncology Division Retreat held at the Hyatt Regency Boston/Cambridge, where the Hale Center was well represented. Scientific presentations included “Defining, modeling and targeting cell state” led by Sri Raghavan and Evelyn Tong, in addition to work from Brian Wolpin’s team including “Emerging clinical data for RAS inhibitors in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer” presented by Brandon Huffman.
2025-10 Stephanie Dougan provided expert analysis to NBC News on research presented at the 2025 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress showing that COVID vaccines may have the added benefit of boosting the immune system's ability to fight cancer. Read the full story by NBC NEWS here.
2025-09 Members of the Hale Center attended the 2025 AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: Advances in Pancreatic Cancer Research—Emerging Science Driving Transformative Solutions. Brian Wolpin gave the keynote address on new methods for early detection and interception of PDAC, Andy Aguirre, co-chair of the conference, presented how the biology of pancreatic cancer is leading to new treatments, and Will Freed-Pastor presented work on novel targets for TCR-based therapies. Julien Dilly and Josh Choe delivered lightning talks on cutting-edge RAS pathway and EMT resistance research.
2025-07 Congratulations to Sri Raghavan, who was awarded a Damon-Runyon Award for his project, “Defining and targeting transcriptional drivers of KRAS inhibitor resistance in pancreatic cancer.” Read about the full announcement here.
2025-06 Congratulations to the Freed-Pastor Lab who recently published “Pancreatic cancer-restricted cryptic antigens are targets for T cell recognition” in Science. Read more about the lab’s innovative work on cryptic peptides at DFCI Online or MIT News.
2025-05 Congratulations to Dan Gui, a clinical and postdoctoral fellow in medical oncology, for being selected as a 2025 Lubin Family Foundation Scholar. Dan will be co-mentored by Andy Aguirre and Eliezer Van Allen. Dan’s research focuses on unraveling the mechanisms behind treatment resistance in pancreatic cancer, with a particular emphasis on non-genetic mechanisms of resistance. Read more about this prestigious award here: Lubin Family Foundation Scholars and Mentors | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
2025-05 Brian Wolpin was inducted into the 13th Annual Class of the Giants of Cancer Care presented by OncLive. This honor recognizes oncology leaders for groundbreaking research and clinical practice, selected by a committee of over 115 oncologists.
2025-03 Michael Rosenthal participated on an expert panel, “Revolutionizing Healthcare – Specialty Spotlight: AI in Oncology” at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Using a low-cost, low-risk AI-driven method, his group is drawing from electronic medical record (EMR) data, opportunistic image analysis, and blood tests to identify high-risk groups within the general population who would benefit most from active screening. Click here to watch a video of Michael’s presentation.
2025-02 Will Freed-Pastor was awarded a 2025 American Society for Clinical Investigation Young Physician-Scientist Award, which recognizes physician-scientists who have made notable achievements in their research. To read more about Will’s recognition by the American Society for Clinical Investigation, click here.
2024-12 Joe Mancias led the December Hale Center Monthly meeting which included updates to Hale PRA II: “Defining PDAC precursor lesion biology to advance early cancer detection and intervention.” Jonathan Nowak, MattVander Heiden and Katie Aney from Sahar Nissim’s Lab provided updates to complementary, ongoing work to understand why the majority of PDAC arises from PanIN but the majority of PanIN do not progress to PDAC.
2024-12 On December 17th, DFCI President and CEO Ben Ebert announced the launch of the Dana-Farber Center for RAS Therapeutics, which will focus on targeting the RAS oncogene in cancer. The Center will be co-directed by Alice Shaw, MD, PhD, a thoracic medical oncologist, and Andrew Aguirre, MD, PhD of the Hale Center, both of whom presented at the DFCI open forum on December 18th. Andy highlighted collaborative efforts across the institute to achieve the mission of the Center: Through scientific discovery, translational research, and clinical investigations, the DFCI Center for RAS Therapeutics will advance novel treatment approaches to transform the lives of patients with RAS-driven cancers.
2024-11 The Hale Center had a strong presence at the 2024 Break Through Cancer (BTC) Summit held in Houston, Texas. Will Freed-Pastor and Stephanie Dougan presented updates to the Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies Project, and Jonathan Nowak provided findings from the Conquering KRAS Project. Lauren Brais, pictured below, was the recipient of the 2024 Livingston Award for her exceptional project management support.
2024-09 Sahar Nissim received the 2024 Rising Star Award from the National Pancreas Foundation. This award recognized the Nissim Lab's work in defining signaling and epigenetic determinants of pancreatic cancer precursors in order to pioneer strategies for interception. Congratulations, Sahar!