
David Tuveson
Professor
Roy J. Zuckerberg Professor of Cancer Research
Cancer Center Director
M.D., Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, 1994
dtuveson@cshl.edu | 516-367-5246
Pancreatic cancer is an extremely lethal malignancy. On average, patients who are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer succumb to the disease within 6 months. Research is the only way to defeat pancreatic cancer. My lab is making progress toward finding a cure by detecting the disease earlier and designing novel therapeutic approaches.
David Tuveson’s laboratory uses murine and human models of pancreatic cancer to explore the fundamental biology of malignancy and thereby identify new diagnostic and treatment strategies. The lab’s approaches run the gamut from designing new model systems of disease to developing new therapeutic and diagnostic approaches for rapid evaluation in preclinical and clinical settings. The lab’s studies make use of organoid cultures—three-dimensional cultures of normal or cancerous epithelia—as ex vivo models to probe cancer biology. Current projects in the lab explore changes in redox metabolism associated with pancreatic cancer tumorigenesis, dissect signaling by the Ras oncogene, discover new biomarkers of early pancreas cancer, and identify mechanisms of cross-talk between pancreatic cancer cells and the tumor stroma. Novel treatment approaches suggested by these studies are then tested by performing therapeutic experiments in mouse models. To dissect molecular changes associated with pancreatic tumorigenesis, the Tuveson lab has generated a large collection of human patient-derived organoid models. By measuring the therapeutic sensitivities of patient-derived organoids, the lab is working to identify novel strategies to treat patients as well as markers of therapeutic response. The Tuveson Laboratory maintains strong links to clinical research, and the ultimate goal is confirmation of preclinical findings in early-phase trials. Collectively, the lab’s bench-to-bedside approach is codified as the “Cancer Therapeutics Initiative,” and this initiative will provide these same approaches to the entire CSHL cancer community.
Dr. Tuveson serves as Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center and the Chief Scientist for the Lustgarten Foundation.
Lab meets clinic: Building on foundational research
December 15, 2021
The future depends on investments in scientific advancement, including expanding the Laboratory’s research visions and shoring up its infrastructure.
CSHL receives 2021 NCI grant of $4.5 million
October 1, 2021
The National Cancer Institute renewed its Basic Laboratory Cancer Center grant for CSHL, marking 34 years of our continued progress in cancer research.
Mestag, co-founded by CSHL prof, named leading new biotech
September 27, 2021
Fierce Biotech named Mestag Therapeutics, co-founded by CSHL Professor David Tuveson, a 2021 “Fierce 15” leader in the biotech and pharma business.
CSHL organoid facility: Cancer custodians
July 2, 2021
To beat our worst enemy, we must first let it grow.
How pancreatic cancer cells dodge drug treatments
June 22, 2021
CSHL scientists discovered a new clue that might explain how some pancreatic cancers evade cancer-killing drugs.
Research matters
June 8, 2021
Innovative research and educational activities never stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
$11 million investment to develop fibroblast therapeutic
April 26, 2021
CSHL Professor David Tuveson and other leading disease experts founded a company to target fibroblasts as a new way to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Dr. David Tuveson inaugurated as AACR president
April 21, 2021
CSHL Cancer Center Director David Tuveson is leading the American Association for Cancer Research.
CSHL’s new organoid facility
November 5, 2020
The 2,200 square foot facility will make and maintain hundreds of live tissue models grown from patient tumors.
One experiment: Organoids as living laboratories
October 30, 2020
These tiny balls of cells are revolutionizing the research and treatment of pancreas and other types of cancers.
Selected Publications
Suppression of tumor-associated neutrophils by lorlatinib attenuates pancreatic cancer growth and improves treatment with immune checkpoint blockade.
7 Jun 2021 | Nature Communications | 12(1):3414
Nielsen, Sebastian, Strøbech, Jan, Horton, Edward, Jackstadt, Rene, Laitala, Anu, Bravo, Marina, Maltese, Giorgia, Jensen, Adina, Reuten, Raphael, Rafaeva, Maria, Karim, Saadia, Hwang, Chang-Il, Arnes, Luis, Tuveson, David, Sansom, Owen, Morton, Jennifer, Erler, Janine
Oncogenic KRAS engages an RSK1/NF1 pathway to inhibit wild-type RAS signaling in pancreatic cancer.
25 May 2021 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA | 118(21):e2016904118
Cheng, Derek, Oni, Tobiloba, Thalappillil, Jennifer, Park, Youngkyu, Ting, Hsiu-Chi, Alagesan, Brinda, Prasad, Nadia, Addison, Kenneth, Rivera, Keith, Pappin, Darryl, Van Aelst, Linda, Tuveson, David
Inhibition of Hedgehog Signaling Alters Fibroblast Composition in Pancreatic Cancer.
1 Apr 2021 | Clinical Cancer Research | 27(7):2023-2037
Steele, Nina, Biffi, Giulia, Kemp, Samantha, Zhang, Yaqing, Drouillard, Donovan, Syu, LiJyun, Hao, Yuan, Oni, Tobiloba, Brosnan, Erin, Elyada, Ela, Doshi, Abhishek, Hansma, Christa, Espinoza, Carlos, Abbas, Ahmed, The, Stephanie, Irizarry-Negron, Valerie, Halbrook, Christopher, Franks, Nicole, Hoffman, Megan, Brown, Kristee, Carpenter, Eileen, Nwosu, Zeribe, Johnson, Craig, Lima, Fatima, Anderson, Michelle, Park, Youngkyu, Crawford, Howard, Lyssiotis, Costas, Frankel, Timothy, Rao, Arvind, Bednar, Filip, Dlugosz, Andrzej, Preall, Jonathan, Tuveson, David, Allen, Benjamin, Pasca di Magliano, Marina
Fighting the Sixth Decade of the Cancer War with Better Cancer Models.
Apr 2021 | Cancer Discovery | 11(4):801-804
Tuveson, David
Diversity and Biology of Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts.
1 Jan 2021 | Physiological Reviews | 101(1):147-176
Biffi, Giulia, Tuveson, David
All Publications
Precision medicine in pancreatic cancer: Patient derived organoid pharmacotyping is a predictive biomarker of clinical treatment response
1 Apr 2022 | Clinical Cancer Research
Seppälä, Toni, Zimmerman, Jacquelyn, Suri, Reecha, Zlomke, Haley, Ivey, Gabriel, Szabolcs, Annamaria, Shubert, Christopher, Cameron, John, Burns, William, Lafaro, Kelly, He, Jin, Wolfgang, Christopher, Zou, Ying, Zheng, Lei, Tuveson, David, Eshlemann, James, Ryan, David, Kimmelman, Alec, Hong, Theodore, Ting, David, Jaffee, Elizabeth, Burkhart, Richard
Lead Identification using 3D Models of Pancreatic Cancer: Development of 3D Tumor Models for High-throughput Screening.
16 Mar 2022 | Slas Discovery
Fernandez-Vega, Virneliz, Hou, Shurong, Plenker, Dennis, Tiriac, Hervé, Baillargeon, Pierre, Shumate, Justin, Scampavia, Louis, Seldin, Jan, Souza, Glauco, Tuveson, David, Spicer, Timothy
Patient-derived triple-negative breast cancer organoids provide robust model systems that recapitulate tumor-intrinsic characteristics
18 Feb 2022 | Cancer Research
Bhatia, Sonam, Kramer, Melissa, Russo, Suzanne, Naik, Payal, Arun, Gayatri, Brophy, Kyle, Andrews, Peter, Fan, Cheng, Perou, Charles, Preall, Jonathan, Ha, Taehoon, Plenker, Dennis, Tuveson, David, Rishi, Arvind, Wilkinson, John, McCombie, W, Kostroff, Karen, Spector, David
Oral famotidine versus placebo in non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19: a randomised, double-blind, data-intense, phase 2 clinical trial
10 Feb 2022 | Gut
Brennan, Christina, Nadella, Sandeep, Zhao, Xiang, Dima, Richard, Jordan-Martin, Nicole, Demestichas, Breanna, Kleeman, Sam, Ferrer, Miriam, von Gablenz, Eva, Mourikis, Nicholas, Rubin, Michael, Adnani, Harsha, Lee, Hassal, Ha, Taehoon, Prum, Soma, Schleicher, Cheryl, Fox, Sharon, Ryan, Michael, Pili, Christina, Goldberg, Gary, Crawford, James, Goodwin, Sara, Zhang, Xiaoyue, Preall, Jonathan, Costa, Ana, Conigliaro, Joseph, Masci, Joseph, Yang, Jie, Tuveson, David, Tracey, Kevin, Janowitz, Tobias
Accurate and robust inference of genetic ancestry from cancer-derived molecular data across genomic platforms
4 Feb 2022 | bioRxiv
Belleau, Pascal, Deschênes, Astrid, Tuveson, David, Krasnitz, Alexander