Elgene Lim, MD, PhD

Dr. Lim received his medical training from the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 1995. He spent 3 years in the military, and returned to complete his Internal Medicine residency at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and a fellowship in Medical Oncology with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He subsequently embarked on a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research where his studies focused on the mammary epithelial cell hierarchy, aberrant changes in the mammary glands of BRCA1 germline mutation carriers, and the development of patient-derived breast cancer xenografts in mice for the developing of novel therapies.

In 2010, he came to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as a post-doctoral fellow under the mentorship of Eric Winer and Myles Brown. In 2012, he was admitted to the faculty of Dana-Farber as an instructor in medicine.

His translation research focus is in the field of breast cancer, and includes:
1) Hormonal signaling in normal breast tissue and breast cancer. Using patient-derived tissue, his studies focus on the genetic and epigenetic changes in mammary cells that occur during cancer development and progression.
2) The evaluation of novel breast cancer therapies and biomarkers using patient-derived breast cancer xenografts.
3) Understanding the predisposing factors leading to breast cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers.