Sandro Santagata is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a physician-scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he practices neuropathology. His research focuses on precision medicine in cancer biology.

Sandro Santagata
Born
Academic background
Alma mater
Doctoral advisorEugenia Spanopoulou
Academic work
Discipline
Institutions

Education

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Born in Astoria, New York, Santagata attended Regis High School. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in neuroscience from Amherst College and medical and doctor of philosophy degrees from the Medical Scientist Training Program at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He trained as an intern in medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and then in anatomic pathology and neuropathology in the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Career

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During graduate school training at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the laboratory of Eugenia Spanopoulou, Santagata and colleagues discovered that a partial loss of function in the RAG components of the V(D)J recombinase causes Omenn syndrome, a severe immunodeficiency disorder.[1][2][3]

While at Mount Sinai, Santagata did fellowship training with Lawrence Shapiro using protein structure to determine the functions of poorly characterized proteins.[4][5] After a residency and fellowship in pathology, he received a Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award (K08) from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health and worked with Susan Lindquist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research studying the role of the master regulator of the heat shock response, HSF1, in the development of cancer.[6][7][8] In 2013, he started his research laboratory in the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The Santagata laboratory uses high dimensional imaging techniques to study human disease to investigate the spatial biology and architecture of cancer, developing approaches for cell biology discovery using human surgical resection tissues, and building cancer atlases that use new tools to disseminate high-definition cancer maps. The Santagata laboratory has refined diagnostic criteria for brain tumors including gliomas,[9] meningiomas[10][11] and craniopharyngiomas,[12] informed genetic counseling, and guided the formation of several clinical trials of targeted therapies. Their work has revealed new ways in which cancer cells adapt to environmental stressors and therapies.[13][14] The lab has also helped develop and implement high-dimensional tissue imaging methods for the study of cancer and other human diseases.[15][16][17] These tissue imaging methods are being used to develop atlases of cancer for Ludwig Cancer Research, the Gray Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute funded Cancer Systems Biology Consortium and Human Tumor Atlas Network.[18]

Santagata is an author of the Oxford Textbook of Neuro-Oncology,[19] Escourolle and Poirier's Manual of Basic Neuropathology[20] and the World Health Organization Classification of Tumours.[21] He practices neuropathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital and is affiliated faculty at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He is a member of the Harvard Medical School Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology and principal investigator of the Ludwig Center at Harvard.[22]

References

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  1. ^ Villa, A.; Santagata, S.; Bozzi, F.; Giliani, S.; Frattini, A.; Imberti, L.; Gatta, L. B.; Ochs, H. D.; Schwarz, K.; Notarangelo, L. D.; Vezzoni, P.; Spanopoulou, E. (1998-05-29). "Partial V(D)J recombination activity leads to Omenn syndrome". Cell. 93 (5): 885–896. doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(00)81448-8. PMID 9630231. S2CID 1527777.
  2. ^ Santagata, S.; Villa, A.; Sobacchi, C.; Cortes, P.; Vezzoni, P. (2000-12-01). "The genetic and biochemical basis of Omenn syndrome". Immunological Reviews. 178: 64–74. doi:10.1034/j.1600-065x.2000.17818.x. PMID 11213808. S2CID 32270945.
  3. ^ Santagata, S.; Gomez, C. A.; Sobacchi, C.; Bozzi, F.; Abinun, M.; Pasic, S.; Cortes, P.; Vezzoni, P.; Villa, A. (2000-12-19). "N-terminal RAG1 frameshift mutations in Omenn's syndrome: internal methionine usage leads to partial V(D)J recombination activity and reveals a fundamental role in vivo for the N-terminal domains". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 97 (26): 14572–14577. Bibcode:2000PNAS...9714572S. doi:10.1073/pnas.97.26.14572. PMC 18960. PMID 11121059.
  4. ^ Boggon, T. J.; Shan, W. S.; Santagata, S.; Myers, S. C.; Shapiro, L. (1999-12-10). "Implication of tubby proteins as transcription factors by structure-based functional analysis". Science. 286 (5447): 2119–2125. doi:10.1126/science.286.5447.2119. PMID 10591637.
  5. ^ Santagata, S.; Boggon, T. J.; Baird, C. L.; Gomez, C. A.; Zhao, J.; Shan, W. S.; Myszka, D. G.; Shapiro, L. (2001-06-15). "G-protein signaling through tubby proteins". Science. 292 (5524): 2041–2050. doi:10.1126/science.1061233. PMID 11375483. S2CID 29856557.
  6. ^ Santagata, Sandro; Mendillo, Marc L.; Tang, Yun-chi; Subramanian, Aravind; Perley, Casey C.; Roche, Stéphane P.; Wong, Bang; Narayan, Rajiv; Kwon, Hyoungtae; Koeva, Martina; Amon, Angelika; Golub, Todd R.; Porco, John A.; Whitesell, Luke; Lindquist, Susan (2013-07-19). "Tight coordination of protein translation and HSF1 activation supports the anabolic malignant state". Science. 341 (6143): 1238303. doi:10.1126/science.1238303. PMC 3959726. PMID 23869022.
  7. ^ Mendillo, Marc L.; Santagata, Sandro; Koeva, Martina; Bell, George W.; Hu, Rong; Tamimi, Rulla M.; Fraenkel, Ernest; Ince, Tan A.; Whitesell, Luke; Lindquist, Susan (2012-08-03). "HSF1 drives a transcriptional program distinct from heat shock to support highly malignant human cancers". Cell. 150 (3): 549–562. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2012.06.031. PMC 3438889. PMID 22863008.
  8. ^ Santagata, Sandro; Hu, Rong; Lin, Nancy U.; Mendillo, Marc L.; Collins, Laura C.; Hankinson, Susan E.; Schnitt, Stuart J.; Whitesell, Luke; Tamimi, Rulla M.; Lindquist, Susan; Ince, Tan A. (2011-11-08). "High levels of nuclear heat-shock factor 1 (HSF1) are associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 108 (45): 18378–18383. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10818378S. doi:10.1073/pnas.1115031108. PMC 3215027. PMID 22042860.
  9. ^ Dias-Santagata, Dora; Lam, Quynh; Vernovsky, Kathy; Vena, Natalie; Lennerz, Jochen K.; Borger, Darrell R.; Batchelor, Tracy T.; Ligon, Keith L.; Iafrate, A. John; Ligon, Azra H.; Louis, David N.; Santagata, Sandro (2011-03-29). "BRAF V600E mutations are common in pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma: diagnostic and therapeutic implications". PLOS ONE. 6 (3): –17948. Bibcode:2011PLoSO...617948D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017948. PMC 3066220. PMID 21479234.
  10. ^ Abedalthagafi, Malak; Bi, Wenya Linda; Aizer, Ayal A.; Merrill, Parker H.; Brewster, Ryan; Agarwalla, Pankaj K.; Listewnik, Marc L.; Dias-Santagata, Dora (2016-05-01). "Oncogenic PI3K mutations are as common as AKT1 and SMO mutations in meningioma". Neuro-Oncology. 18 (5): 649–655. doi:10.1093/neuonc/nov316. PMC 4827048. PMID 26826201.
  11. ^ Shankar, Ganesh M.; Abedalthagafi, Malak; Vaubel, Rachael A.; Merrill, Parker H.; Nayyar, Naema; Gill, Corey M.; Brewster, Ryan; Bi, Wenya Linda (2017-04-01). "Germline and somatic BAP1 mutations in high-grade rhabdoid meningiomas". Neuro-Oncology. 19 (4): 535–545. doi:10.1093/neuonc/now235. PMC 5464371. PMID 28170043.
  12. ^ Brastianos, Priscilla K.; Taylor-Weiner, Amaro; Manley, Peter E.; Jones, Robert T.; Dias-Santagata, Dora; Thorner, Aaron R.; Lawrence, Michael S.; Rodriguez, Fausto J. (2014-02-12). "Exome sequencing identifies BRAF mutations in papillary craniopharyngiomas". Nature Genetics. 46 (2): 161–165. doi:10.1038/ng.2868. PMC 3982316. PMID 24413733.
  13. ^ Gaglia, Giorgio; Rashid, Rumana; Yapp, Clarence; Joshi, Gaurav N.; Li, Carmen G.; Lindquist, Susan L.; Sarosiek, Kristopher A.; Whitesell, Luke (2020-02-01). "HSF1 phase transition mediates stress adaptation and cell fate decisions". Nature Cell Biology. 22 (2): 151–158. doi:10.1038/s41556-019-0458-3. PMC 7135912. PMID 32015439.
  14. ^ Tsvetkov, Peter; Mendillo, Marc L.; Zhao, Jinghui; Carette, Jan E.; Merrill, Parker H.; Cikes, Domagoj; Varadarajan, Malini; van Diemen, Ferdy R. (2015-09-01). "Compromising the 19S proteasome complex protects cells from reduced flux through the proteasome". eLife. 4. doi:10.7554/eLife.08467. PMC 4551903. PMID 26327695.
  15. ^ Keener, Amanda. "Real-time tissue analysis could guide brain tumor surgery". Spoonful of Medicine. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  16. ^ Lin, Jia-Ren; Izar, Benjamin; Wang, Shu; Yapp, Clarence; Mei, Shaolin; Shah, Parin M.; Santagata, Sandro; Sorger, Peter K. (2018-07-11). "Highly multiplexed immunofluorescence imaging of human tissues and tumors using t-CyCIF and conventional optical microscopes". eLife. 7: –31657. doi:10.7554/eLife.31657. PMC 6075866. PMID 29993362.
  17. ^ Dutchen, Stephanie. "Dream Machines Sometimes, answering the questions of science requires creating new ways of seeing". Harvard Medicine. Harvard University. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  18. ^ Rozenblatt-Rosen, Orit; Regev, Aviv; Oberdoerffer, Philipp; Nawy, Tal; Hupalowska, Anna; Rood, Jennifer E.; Ashenberg, Orr; Cerami, Ethan (2020-04-16). "The Human Tumor Atlas Network: Charting Tumor Transitions across Space and Time at Single-Cell Resolution". Cell. 181 (2): 236–249. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.03.053. PMC 7376497. PMID 32302568.
  19. ^ Santagata, Sandro; Ligon, Keith L. (2021-08-02). "Prognostication for meningiomas: H3K27me3 to the rescue?". Neuro-Oncology. 23 (8): 1218–1219. doi:10.1093/neuonc/noab083. ISSN 1522-8517. PMC 8328006. PMID 33822195. Retrieved 2022-01-04.
  20. ^ Escourolle and Poirier's manual of basic neuropathology. Françoise Gray, C. Duyckaerts, Umberto De Girolami (eds.) (Sixth ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2018. ISBN 978-0-19-067501-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  21. ^ Central Nervous System TumoursS. S.l.: World Health Organization. 2022. ISBN 978-92-832-4508-7.
  22. ^ "People". Ludwig Tumor Atlas. Retrieved 4 January 2022.