Senthil Kumar Muthuswamy PhD​

Senthil K. Muthuswamy, Ph.D., is the Director of the Cell Biology Program at the Cancer Centre at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Muthuswamy received his Ph.D. from McMaster University, Canada, and did his postdoctoral fellowship with Joan Brugge at Harvard Medical School. He began his independent faculty position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, and subsequently moved to Princess Margaret Cancer Centre as the Margaret Lau Chair in Breast Cancer Research. In 2015, he moved to BIDMC to direct the Cell Biology program at the Cancer Center at BIDMC. Dr. Muthuswamy is a recipient of the Rita Allen Scholar award, V Foundation scholar award, US Army Era of Hope Scholar Award, and the Canadian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology young scientist award for outstanding research achievements.

His laboratory pioneered both the development and use of three-dimensional culture methods for modeling carcinoma of the breast and pancreas and understanding the unexplored role played by cell polarity proteins in regulating the biology of cancer. He was the first to identify cell polarity proteins, such as PARD6, PARD3, and SCRIB, as critical regulators of cell death, cell proliferation, and metastasis either by themselves or in cooperation with oncogenes, such as ERBB2 and MYC, in breast cancer. His group continues to investigate and discover how cell polarity proteins regulate cell biology of cancer and normal cells and its impact on stress adaptation and therapy resistance.