A father's illness, a son's quest
Levi Garraway, MD, PhD
I first started thinking seriously about a career in cancer biology when my father was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer while I was an MD-PhD student at Harvard Medical School. Although my graduate work was in a different field, I soon began to spend all of my spare time poring over the medical and scientific literature related to cancer. I became captivated by the scientific understanding of malignancy — but also somewhat distressed by the difficulties inherent in using this knowledge to help oncology patients such as my father. This goal of translating cancer science into medical advances has since become my passion and life's work.
I feel fortunate to be a physician-scientist at Dana-Farber. My research involves using genomics technologies to identify mutations in cancer cell DNA, and to understand how those mutations might make cancer cells vulnerable to new targeted therapies. I'm confident this type of work will help bring about a day when treatment for even the most deadly cancers can be tailored to the specific mutations in each patient's tumor. Dana-Farber is a world leader in this effort to which I am honored to contribute. I know my father would be pleased.
— Levi Garraway, MD, PhD
