Lubin Scholars and Lubin Mentors
Lubin Scholars include some of the nation's most promising early career investigators. Each Lubin Scholar is pursuing cancer-relevant basic or translational laboratory-based research, and each has demonstrated the potential to join the next generation of leaders in cancer research. Lubin Scholar Mentors are leaders in their respective scientific fields — providing the scholars with guidance, support, and inspiration.
2025 Lubin Scholars and Mentors
- Scholar Emma Fink, MD, PhD, and Mentor Edward Chouchani, PhD
- Scholar Jordan Chinai, MD, PhD, and Mentors Robert Manguso, PhD, and Benjamin Schlechter, MD
- Scholar Dan Gui, MD, PhD, and Mentors Andrew Aguirre, MD, PhD, and Eliezer Van Allen, MD
- Scholar Eran Hodis, MD, PhD, and Mentor Bradley Bernstein, MD, PhD
- Scholar Cory Rillahan, MD, PhD, and Mentor Kimberly Stegmaier, MD
Read about our 2025 Scholars and Mentors below.
Scholar Emma Fink, MD, PhD, and Mentor Edward Chouchani, PhD
Emma Fink, MD, PhD, completed her undergraduate studies at Amherst College and earned her MD/PhD through the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD program. She conducted her graduate research in the lab of Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD. Her work elucidated the mechanism of lenalidomide in del(5q) myelodysplastic syndrome and generated new mouse models to study thalidomide derivatives. Fink completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and is currently a Medical Oncology Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. As a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Edward Chouchani, PhD, she is investigating metabolite regulation of E3 ubiquitin ligase function, with a focus on how intracellular levels of the amino acid cysteine regulate the degradation of cysteine-consuming enzymes, creating a homeostatic feedback loop. By understanding this mechanism, Fink aims to develop drugs targeting metabolic vulnerabilities across a variety of cancers.
Edward Chouchani, PhD, joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 2017. He received his PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Cambridge and MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit. He then performed postdoctoral research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. In 2024, he became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
Research in the Chouchani Lab focuses on deciphering molecular mechanisms that drive metabolic disease and using this information to develop targeted therapeutic strategies. Mitochondria are critical hubs for metabolic signaling, and their dysfunction is key in the pathology of metabolic disease. The Chouchani Lab combines mass spectrometry and targeted pharmacological approaches in vivo to understand how mitochondrial redox metabolism controls physiology in clinically informative mouse models of obesity and diabetes.
Scholar Jordan Chinai, MD, PhD, and Mentors Robert Manguso, PhD, and Benjamin Schlechter, MD
Jordan Chinai, MD, PhD, grew up in Dallas, Texas, and completed his MD/PhD at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. While there, his thesis research focused on identifying key pathways that tumors use to avoid destruction by the immune system. He went on to complete his clinical training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is currently a medical oncology fellow in the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a postdoctoral scholar at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His clinical and research focus is on understanding why currently approved immunotherapies do not benefit most patients with gastrointestinal cancers. His research aims to discover more effective immunotherapies through the design and implementation of novel functional genomic screens.
Robert Manguso, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research and Harvard Medical School, and an Associate Member at the Broad Institute. The major focus of the Manguso Lab is to understand how cancers evade the immune system and discover new ways to improve cancer immunotherapy. They use a range of approaches, including mouse models, functional genomics, cellular immunology, and single-cell profiling to reveal the mechanistic basis for cancer immune evasion. The Manguso Lab has pioneered the use of in vivo genetic screens with CRISPR to identify new immunotherapy targets and resistance mechanisms. These approaches have led to the discovery of important new immune checkpoints, such as the tyrosine phosphatase PTPN2 as a critical regulator of immunotherapy sensitivity in tumor cells. The lab has also developed new technologies for in vivo genetic screens and developed new screening methods for identifying factors that enhance the function of CAR T cells. The long-term goals of their research are to understand the basic mechanisms of immune evasion by tumors, develop therapeutic strategies to overcome immunotherapy resistance, and create new technologies and methods to probe the interactions between tumor cells and immune cells in vivo.
Benjamin Schlechter, MD, is senior physician in the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who has a particular focus on colorectal cancer, anal cancer, and innovative immunotherapies. He previously worked in the laboratory of Carol L. Rosenberg, MD, at Boston University School of Medicine and Donald E. Ingber, MD, PhD, at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. Schlechter is a former member of the faculty at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as well as their former Director of Inpatient Hematology and Oncology. He is an active participant in investigator-initiated, cooperative-group, and industry-funded clinical trials in gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies. He currently focuses on the development of novel approaches to immunotherapy in GI cancers generally and colorectal cancer, in particular. He is the Harvard-wide principal investigator of several cellular therapy trials for GI cancers as well as trials involving checkpoint inhibitors and novel chemotherapies.
Scholar Dan Gui, MD, PhD, and Mentors Andrew Aguirre, MD, PhD, and Eliezer Van Allen, MD
Dan Gui, MD, PhD, is a clinical fellow in medical oncology and postdoctoral fellow in the Aguirre and Van Allen Labs, specializing in gastrointestinal oncology and pancreatic cancer research. His research focuses on unraveling the mechanisms behind treatment resistance in pancreatic cancer, with a particular emphasis on non-genetic mechanisms of resistance. Prior to working at Dana-Farber, he earned his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was mentored by Matthew Vander Heiden, MD, PhD, while working on cancer metabolism. He completed his MD at Harvard University in 2019, followed by a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Andrew Aguirre, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also an Institute Member at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; an associate director for the Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer; and a co-director of the Center for RAS Therapeutics at Dana-Farber. Aguirre leads a basic and translational cancer research laboratory that studies pancreatic cancer biology and RAS signaling with the goal of developing new therapeutic strategies for patients.
Eliezer Van Allen, MD, is chief of the Division of Population Sciences at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; the Chandra Nohria Family Chair for AI in Cancer Research at Dana-Farber; and an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also an Institute Member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a Member Researcher in The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. As both a medical oncologist and computational biologist, he develops algorithms to dissect high-dimensional data directly from cancer patients and uses these insights to address major open questions in the field. Van Allen's research has led to significant advances in understanding the molecular origins of cancer, using artificial intelligence to discover novel resistance mechanisms to cancer therapies, and defining how genomics can guide clinical decision-making. Through these initiatives, he created the field of clinical computational oncology to advance and enable precision cancer medicine worldwide.
Originally from Los Angeles, CA, he studied Symbolic Systems at Stanford University, obtained his MD from UCLA, and completed a residency in internal medicine at UC San Francisco before coming to Boston and completing a medical oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care program.
Scholar Eran Hodis, MD, PhD, and Mentor Bradley Bernstein, MD, PhD
Eran Hodis, MD, PhD, is a clinical fellow in medical oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Mass General Brigham. As a Lubin Scholar, he will investigate how cellular stress influences cancer cell identity and behavior in melanoma. Insights into this process might yield new strategies to overcome drug resistance in cancer.
Hodis holds a BA in mathematics and biochemistry/molecular biology from Boston University, an MSc in bioinformatics from the Weizmann Institute, and an MD magna cum laude from the Health Sciences and Technology Program at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his PhD in biophysics from Harvard University, where his research advanced understanding of cancer genetics, particularly melanoma. Hodis completed an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research has been recognized by a Forbeck Scholarship, a Dan David Prize Scholarship, the Leon Reznick Memorial Prize, and his inclusion in the Forbes' "30 Under 30" in Science (2015).
Bradley Bernstein, MD, PhD, is chair of Cancer Biology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he holds the Richard and Nancy Lubin Family Chair. He is also the Director of the Gene Regulation Observatory at the Broad Institute; a professor of Cell Biology and Pathology at Harvard Medical School; and an investigator at the Ludwig Center at Harvard Medical School. He served on the faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2005 to 2021.
Bernstein's research focuses on epigenetic gene regulation in stem cells and cancer. His work has been recognized by an Early Career Scientist Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; a Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund; the NIH Director's Pioneer Award; an American Cancer Society Professorship; and the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research. Dr. Bernstein was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (2023) and the Fellows of the American Association of Cancer Research (2025).
Scholar Cory Rillahan, MD, PhD, and Mentor Kimberly Stegmaier, MD
Cory Rillahan, MD, PhD, is a pediatric oncologist and chemical biologist interested in the development and design of new therapeutics for pediatric malignancies. He received his BS in biochemistry from Tufts University followed by his PhD in chemical biology from the Scripps Research Institute, where he developed novel first-in-class small molecules using high throughput screening and rational design approaches. He conducted postdoctoral work at Memorial Sloan Kettering and during this time was inspired to become a physician-scientist and let his patient interactions fuel his research. He attended NYU for medical school where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, followed by pediatrics training at Boston Children's Hospital and a pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber. His research focuses on the study of oncogenic fusion-transcription factors using functional genomics, proteomics, and chemical biology approaches with the overall goal of identifying new therapeutic avenues to target these protein complexes.
Kimberly Stegmaier, MD, is Chair of the Department of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Associate Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children's Hospital (BCH); a professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; a principal investigator in Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber, and an attending physician at BCH and Dana-Farber. She is also an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. She received her BS from Duke University and her MD from Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency at BCH and a post-doctoral pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber/BCH. In 2006, she launched her own laboratory effort at the Institute.
Stegmaier's laboratory integrates chemical biology, genomic, and proteomic approaches to discover new lead compounds and protein targets for cancer therapy. She has focused her efforts on fusion-driven childhood cancers (e.g., leukemia, Ewing sarcoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma) as well as neuroblastoma.