Michael Yaffe, MD, PhD

Michael B. Yaffe, M.D., Ph.D., is the David H. Koch Professor of Biological Engineering and Biology at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a senior associate member of the Broad Institute, and an Attending Surgeon/Surgical Intensivist in the Departments of Surgery and Anesthesia at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Yaffe received his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University, and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University, followed by advanced post-doctoral training with Prof. Lew Cantley in the Dept. of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Yaffe’s research focuses on signaling pathways that cells use to respond to injury and inflammation, particularly the role of protein kinases and modular protein domains in the DNA damage response, tumor development, and anti-cancer therapeutics. His laboratory uses a highly multi-disciplinary approach that connects systems biology and bio-computation with molecular pharmacology, biochemistry/proteomics, and cell and structural biology. Recent work in his laboratory has led to new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer, lung cancer, and ovarian cancer by employing traditional anti-cancer agents in very unconventional ways. Ongoing work continues to explore how inhibition of specific signaling pathways can be used to improve the response of tumors to combination chemotherapy and chemo-radiation treatment.

Dr. Yaffe is also the Scientific Editor-in-Chief of Science Signaling, a member of the Editorial Boards of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, and Cell Cycle, and a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps.