William Freed-Pastor, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist and physician-scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, specializing in gastrointestinal oncology and immuno-oncology. He is an investigator within the Division of Molecular and Cellular Oncology and the Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Member at the Broad Institute. Through sophisticated preclinical and patient-derived models, CRISPR-based in vivo genetic engineering, T-cell receptor discovery, and empirical antigen discovery, the Freed-Pastor laboratory is focused on dissecting the mechanisms of immune escape and tumor-immune crosstalk in pancreatic cancer, with the overarching goal of using these insights to guide therapeutic advances for cancer patients.
Dr. Freed-Pastor has been a Young Investigator on the Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C)-Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Interception Dream Team and he was awarded the SU2C Golden Arrow Early Career Scientist Award, Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists, SU2C Sharp Award, ASCO Young Investigator Award, PanCAN Career Development Award, SU2C Nina Nicolai Innovation in Collaboration Award, V Foundation Translational Award, Yosemite-American Cancer Society Award, an ASCI Young Physician-Scientist Award, and an AACR NextGen Star Award. Dr. Freed-Pastor is a member of a CRUK/NCI Cancer Grand Challenges team (Team ILLUMINE) to uncover the mechanistic basis underlying translation of the Cancer Dark Proteome and to develop immune-based therapeutic strategies for cancer patients.