Photo of William Freed-Pastor,  MD, PhD

William Freed-Pastor, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute


William_Freed-Pastor@DFCI.harvard.edu

William Freed-Pastor, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

EDUCATIONAL TITLES

  • Assistant Professor, Medicine, Harvard Medical School
  • Principal Investigator, Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

DF/HCC PROGRAM AFFILIATION

Research Abstract

Dr. Freed-Pastor is a medical oncologist and physician-scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, specializing in gastrointestinal oncology and immuno-oncology. He is an investigator within the Division of Molecular and Cellular Oncology and the Hale Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research. His laboratory focuses on understanding immune escape in pancreatic cancer and dissecting tumor-immune crosstalk using sophisticated preclinical models.

Dr. Freed-Pastor completed his undergraduate studies at Case Western Reserve University, and subsequently received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed his graduate studies in the laboratory of Carol Prives, during which time he elucidated novel functions of the mutant p53 protein. Following the successful completion of his MD/PhD, Dr. Freed-Pastor completed his internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a Medical Oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He subsequently completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Tyler Jacks at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, one of the Lustgarten Foundation dedicated pancreatic cancer research laboratories.

Dr. Freed-Pastor has been a Young Investigator on the Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C)-Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Interception Dream Team and he was recently awarded the SU2C Golden Arrow Early Career Scientist Award, the SU2C Sharp Award for Innovation in Collaboration (with Dr. Phil Greenberg), a Conquer Cancer Foundation ASCO Young Investigator Award, a Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) Career Development Award, and a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists for his work to understand the role of the immune system during pancreatic tumor development and offer insights into therapeutic approaches that leverage the immune system for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Publications from Harvard Catalyst Profiles

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  • Ely ZA, Mathey-Andrews N, Naranjo S, Gould SI, Mercer KL, Newby GA, Cabana CM, Rideout WM, Jaramillo GC, Khirallah JM, Holland K, Randolph PB, Freed-Pastor WA, Davis JR, Kulstad Z, Westcott PMK, Lin L, Anzalone AV, Horton BL, Pattada NB, Shanahan SL, Ye Z, Spranger S, Xu Q, Sánchez-Rivera FJ, Liu DR, Jacks T. A prime editor mouse to model a broad spectrum of somatic mutations in vivo. Nat Biotechnol 2023. PubMed
  • Dias Costa A, Väyrynen SA, Chawla A, Zhang J, Väyrynen JP, Lau MC, Williams HL, Yuan C, Morales-Oyarvide V, Elganainy D, Singh H, Cleary JM, Perez K, Ng K, Freed-Pastor W, Mancias JD, Dougan SK, Wang J, Rubinson DA, Dunne RF, Kozak MM, Brais L, Reilly E, Clancy T, Linehan DC, Chang DT, Hezel AF, Koong AC, Aguirre A, Wolpin BM, Nowak JA. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is associated with altered immune cell infiltration and an anti-tumorigenic microenvironment in resected pancreatic cancer. Clin Cancer Res 2022. PubMed
  • Freed-Pastor WA, Aguirre AJ. Getting a handle on KRAS inhibitor resistance with hapten-mediated anti-tumor immunity. Cancer Cell 2022; 40:908-910. PubMed
  • Hwang WL, Jagadeesh KA, Guo JA, Hoffman HI, Yadollahpour P, Reeves JW, Mohan R, Drokhlyansky E, Van Wittenberghe N, Ashenberg O, Farhi SL, Schapiro D, Divakar P, Miller E, Zollinger DR, Eng G, Schenkel JM, Su J, Shiau C, Yu P, Freed-Pastor WA, Abbondanza D, Mehta A, Gould J, Lambden C, Porter CBM, Tsankov A, Dionne D, Waldman J, Cuoco MS, Nguyen L, Delorey T, Phillips D, Barth JL, Kem M, Rodrigues C, Ciprani D, Roldan J, Zelga P, Jorgji V, Chen JH, Ely Z, Zhao D, Fuhrman K, Fropf R, Beechem JM, Loeffler JS, Ryan DP, Weekes CD, Ferrone CR, Qadan M, Aryee MJ, Jain RK, Neuberg DS, Wo JY, Hong TS, Xavier R, Aguirre AJ, Rozenblatt-Rosen O, Mino-Kenudson M, Castillo CF, Liss AS, Ting DT, Jacks T, Regev A. Single-nucleus and spatial transcriptome profiling of pancreatic cancer identifies multicellular dynamics associated with neoadjuvant treatment. Nat Genet 2022; 54:1178-1191. PubMed
  • Jaeger AM, Stopfer LE, Ahn R, Sanders EA, Sandel DA, Freed-Pastor WA, Rideout WM, Naranjo S, Fessenden T, Nguyen KB, Winter PS, Kohn RE, Westcott PMK, Schenkel JM, Shanahan SL, Shalek AK, Spranger S, White FM, Jacks T. Deciphering the immunopeptidome in vivo reveals new tumour antigens. Nature 2022; 607:149-155. PubMed
  • Yang D, Jones MG, Naranjo S, Rideout WM, Min KHJ, Ho R, Wu W, Replogle JM, Page JL, Quinn JJ, Horns F, Qiu X, Chen MZ, Freed-Pastor WA, McGinnis CS, Patterson DM, Gartner ZJ, Chow ED, Bivona TG, Chan MM, Yosef N, Jacks T, Weissman JS. Lineage tracing reveals the phylodynamics, plasticity, and paths of tumor evolution. Cell 2022; 185:1905-1923.e25. PubMed
  • Schenkel JM, Herbst RH, Canner D, Li A, Hillman M, Shanahan SL, Gibbons G, Smith OC, Kim JY, Westcott P, Hwang WL, Freed-Pastor WA, Eng G, Cuoco MS, Rogers P, Park JK, Burger ML, Rozenblatt-Rosen O, Cong L, Pauken KE, Regev A, Jacks T. Conventional type I dendritic cells maintain a reservoir of proliferative tumor-antigen specific TCF-1 CD8 T cells in tumor-draining lymph nodes. Immunity 2021; 54:2338-2353.e6. PubMed
  • Freed-Pastor WA, Lambert LJ, Ely ZA, Pattada NB, Bhutkar A, Eng G, Mercer KL, Garcia AP, Lin L, Rideout WM, Hwang WL, Schenkel JM, Jaeger AM, Bronson RT, Westcott PMK, Hether TD, Divakar P, Reeves JW, Deshpande V, Delorey T, Phillips D, Yilmaz OH, Regev A, Jacks T. The CD155/TIGIT axis promotes and maintains immune evasion in neoantigen-expressing pancreatic cancer. Cancer Cell 2021. PubMed
  • Hamza B, Miller AB, Meier L, Stockslager M, Ng SR, King EM, Lin L, DeGouveia KL, Mulugeta N, Calistri NL, Strouf H, Bray C, Rodriguez F, Freed-Pastor WA, Chin CR, Jaramillo GC, Burger ML, Weinberg RA, Shalek AK, Jacks T, Manalis SR. Measuring kinetics and metastatic propensity of CTCs by blood exchange between mice. Nat Commun 2021; 12:5680. PubMed
  • Moon SH, Huang CH, Houlihan SL, Regunath K, Freed-Pastor WA, Morris JP, Tschaharganeh DF, Kastenhuber ER, Barsotti AM, Culp-Hill R, Xue W, Ho YJ, Baslan T, Li X, Mayle A, de Stanchina E, Zender L, Tong DR, D'Alessandro A, Lowe SW, Prives C. p53 Represses the Mevalonate Pathway to Mediate Tumor Suppression. Cell 2019; 176:564-580.e19. PubMed
  • Freed-Pastor WA, Prives C. Mutant p53: one name, many proteins. Genes Dev 2012; 26:1268-86. PubMed
  • Freed-Pastor WA, Mizuno H, Zhao X, Langerød A, Moon SH, Rodriguez-Barrueco R, Barsotti A, Chicas A, Li W, Polotskaia A, Bissell MJ, Osborne TF, Tian B, Lowe SW, Silva JM, Børresen-Dale AL, Levine AJ, Bargonetti J, Prives C. Mutant p53 disrupts mammary tissue architecture via the mevalonate pathway. Cell 2012; 148:244-58. PubMed
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