Research Partners

Dr. Brastianos received her BSc in biochemistry and chemistry from the University of British Columbia, where she graduated as her class valedictorian. She completed her medical school training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and her internal medicine residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Following her training at Johns Hopkins, she pursued her fellowship training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She has received an ASCO Young Investigator Award, a Susan G. Komen Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, an American Brain Tumor Association Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Terri Brodeur Foundation Fellowship Award. Most recently, she was named a “NextGen Star” by the American Association for Cancer Research. She is now faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Brastianos’ research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms that drive brain tumors. Their discovery of clinically actionable genes in meningiomas and craniopharyngiomas has the potential to alter how these tumors are treated. Dr. Brastianos is currently also using sequencing technology to characterize the genomics of brain metastases. She has woven together a team of national and international collaborators to study the molecular pathogenesis of brain metastases. She also leads a multidisciplinary central nervous system metastasis clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her hope is that the findings from genomic studies will provide an understanding of the molecular pathways that drive brain metastasis, which will allow the development of more rational therapeutic approaches for this common and devastating complication of cancer.