Constantine Mitsiades

Constantine S. Mitsiades received his MD, PhD and a Master's degree in Basic and Clinical Medical Sciences from the University of Athens, School of Medicine, in Greece. He also received a Master's degree in Medical Sciences from Harvard Medical School. Since 2003, he has been a faculty member, initially as Instructor and then as Assistant Professor of Medicine, at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. His research work has focused on understanding the cell-autonomous and microenvironment-driven mechanisms of tumor cell resistance to pharmacological and immune based therapies; and on developing novel therapies which neutralize the ability of tumor cells to develop resistance to currently available anti-cancer treatments. For instance, Dr. Mitsiades' studies documented that nonmalignant "accessory" cells of the tumor microenvironment, e.g. bone marrow stromal cells, can cause resistance to several different types of pharmacological therapies as well as immune effector cells, such as NK cells and cytotoxic T-cells. These studies led to further validation of this concept in many other types of cancers. Dr. Mitsiades has published more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals (including Cell, Nature Medicine, Cancer Cell, etc.), and in 2014 Dr. Mitsiades was included in the list of the "World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds" compiled by Thomson-Reuters. Many of his myeloma-oriented studies translated to improved therapies for patients with this disease, including combination regimens (e.g. combinations of proteasome inhibitors with thalidomide derivatives, alkylators, anthracyclines, histone deacetylase inhibitors or Bcl-2 family member inhibitors) which have been FDA-approved, represent a standard-of-care for myeloma or have demonstrated very promising clinical data. Building on this experience, Dr. Mitsiades' research team has applied in recent years the concepts and models from their myeloma research towards the bench-to-bedside development of novel therapies for both advanced hematologic malignancies and metastatic solid tumors.