Research Abstract
As head of the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Sciences, Sorger leads a university-wide effort to advance the basic and translational science used to develop new medicines, identify responsive patients and evaluate new drugs via precision clinical trials. The Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology he directs brings together 18 faculty members from six institutions in a multi-disciplinary effort to develop and apply new concepts in drug discovery. Sorger was cofounder of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals and Glencoe Software and is an advisor to multiple public and private companies and research institutes in the US, Europe and Japan. He is also active as a teacher, focusing on graduate-level courses in structural biology, physical chemistry and systems biology
Research in the Sorger Lab focuses on the systems biology of signal transduction and cell fate determination with an emphasis on inter- and intra-cellular signaling networks and their roles in controlling proliferation and cell death in cancer and inflammatory diseases. Our group uses mathematical and experimental approaches to model mechanisms of signal transduction and oncogenesis and then uses the models to understand and predict the responses of cells and tumors to therapeutic drugs applied individually and in combination. Our models aim to capture precise biochemical and oncogenic mechanism and also the complexities of interaction among competing and overlapping signaling cascades. We study oncogenic and pharmacological mechanism in cell lines, transgenic mice and primary human tumor cells using imaging proteomic and genomic approaches. We also develop open-source software for analyzing biological networks and participate in multiple collaborative programs working to improve computational biology methods. We are now attempting to build collaborative programs with physician-scientists engaged in early stage clinical trials as a means to apply systems pharmacology approaches to patient stratification and combination therapy.