David J. Kwiatkowski, MD, PhD
Dr. David J. Kwiatkowski is a practicing thoracic oncologist and genetic researcher with expertise in all types of thoracic malignancy. His particular interests include therapeutic targeting and personalized medicine approaches to cancer patient care. He is also a visiting scientist at the Broad Institute, where he is engaged in many cancer genome sequencing projects, including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) projects on bladder cancer, kidney chromophobe tumors, and mesothelioma.[1]
While Dr. Kwiatkowski is deeply involved in numerous research projects, he devotes a significant amount of his time to therapeutic development and treatments for malignant mesothelioma. He has a much deeper familiarity with the rare asbestos-related disease than most thoracic oncologists, and sees many patients on referral from around the country.[2]
Education and Career
Dr. Kwiatkoski earned his bachelor of science degree from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in Mathematics. He received his medical degree from Columbia University, where he was awarded the Janeway Prize for the highest achievement and abilities in his graduating medical class. He then went on to complete an internship and residency in Internal Medicine and then Hematology-Oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Kwiatkowski remained at Massachusetts General Hospital until 1991 when he moved to Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Since then his distinguished career has included fulfilling the roles of Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Medical Oncologist in the Thoracic Oncology Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Senior Physician in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.[1]
Research
Dr. Kwiatkowski is a self-trained human and cancer geneticist. He has been the leader of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Cancer Genetics program since 2007, as well as an Associate Member of the Broad Institute and an active participant in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). At the Kwiatkowski Lab, he explores a diverse set of interests revolving around cancer genetics, and specifically with regard to tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) and all of its related tumors and manifestations, and lung, kidney, bladder cancer, and mesothelioma analyses. Dr. Kwiatkowski is also Principal Investigator for a thoracic oncology protocol at DFCI.[1]
The Kwiatkowski Lab uses a variety of approaches in its work, with a primary focus on genetics, epigenetics, and computational analyses, but also heavy use of cell culture, pathway analyses, mouse models, and human pathology investigation.[2]
He has participated in numerous mesothelioma-related studies that have been published in major medical journals, including:
- Integrative Molecular Characterization of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma. Cancer Discov. 2018 Dec;8(12):1548-1565. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-18-0804. Epub 2018 Oct 15. PMID: 30322867; PMCID: PMC6310008.
- Dissecting heterogeneity in malignant pleural mesothelioma through histo-molecular gradients for clinical applications. Blum, Y., Meiller, C., Quetel, L. et al. Nat Commun10, 1333 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09307-6
- KRAS signaling in malignant pleural mesothelioma EMBO Mol Med (2022)14:e13631https://doi.org/10.15252/emmm.202013631
Professional Awards
- Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Senior Physician, BWH, DFCI
- NIH NINDS Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award
- Program Leader, Dana Farber Harvard Cancer Center Cancer Genetics Program
- The LAM Foundation Scientific Advancement Award
- Manuel R. Gomez Award of the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance
- Harvard Medical School Excellence in Tutoring Award, 2010, 2011
