Myles Brown, MD, elected to the National Academy of Sciences

Myles Brown, MD, has been elected to The National Academy of Sciences. Brown, who is the director of the Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is one of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 14 countries elected to the Academy in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

“Election to the Academy is regarded as one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive,” said Edward J. Benz, Jr., MD, president and CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “Myles’ recognition by the Academy is a true testament to the pioneering research he has led in epigenetics and cancer. Myles has also been a great mentor and citizen of Dana-Farber.”

Brown’s research focuses on elucidating factors underlying the hormonal responsiveness of human cancers, primarily studying the role of steroid hormone receptors and their coregulators. His work primarily examines the role of the estrogen receptor and its coregulators in breast cancer and the androgen receptor and its coregulators in prostate cancer.

Brown, who is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), obtained his undergraduate degree in biology from Yale University and his M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He completed training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital while doing research with David Livingston, MD, at Dana-Farber. He went on to training in medical oncology at Dana-Farber and postdoctoral research with Phillip Sharp at MIT, and joined the faculty of the Dana-Farber and HMS. From 2002 to 2010, he served as chief of the Division of Molecular and Cellular Oncology at Dana-Farber. In 2010, together with Shirley Liu, PhD, he founded the Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics at Dana-Farber.

Those elected to the National Academy of Sciences this month bring the total number of active members to 2,291 and the total number of foreign associates to 465. Foreign associates are nonvoting members of the Academy, with citizenship outside the United States.