T32 Training Grant in Cancer Neuroscience

Overview

The grant supports 2-3 years of post-doctoral trainees studying different aspects of cancer neuroscience including the influence of the neuronal microenvironment on adult and pediatric neural and non-neural cancers as well as the impact of different types of cancer and cancer treatments on the nervous system. The grant supports 6 positions per year and the first cohort of trainees started in August 2023. The initial trainees and their projects are linked below.

Leadership

PI and Program Director:

• Tracy Batchelor, MD, Martin A. Samuels Professor of Neurology and Neurologist-in-Chief and Chair, Department of Neurology, Mass General Brigham

Co-PI and Co-Program Director:

• Michael Greenberg, PhD, Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology

Program Manager:

• Olga Katsovskiy, MHA, Brigham and Women's Hospital

Committees

Training Oversight Committee (TOC): Ensures consistency and quality of training; and provides feedback on training content and advice on trainee recruitment strategies.

• Scott Plotkin, MD, PhD (Chair), Mass General Brigham
• Francisco Quintana, PhD, Mass General Brigham
• Chenghua Gu, PhD, Harvard Medical School
• David Van Vactor, PhD, Harvard Medical School
• Nika Danial, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Postdoctoral Fellows Committee (PFC): Composed of current T32 Fellows and alumni. Provides feedback to the Co-Directors, Program Coordinator, and TOC on structure, content, and quality of training. Serves as liaison with the HMS Office of Postdoctoral Fellows. Selects faculty for T32 sponsored courses. Peer support for Cancer Neuroscience trainees.

• Tamar Berger, MD, PhD (Chair), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
• Joseph Amick, PhD, Harvard Medical School
• Taylor Uccello, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Jessica Kenison-White, PhD, Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Olga Katsovskiy, MHA, Brigham and Women's Hospital

Postdoctoral Mentoring Committee (PMC): Composed of primary mentors, co-mentors, and faculty with expertise relevant to the trainee’s research area. Provides guidance and support to trainees, ensuring individual trainee's success in their research training program. Assists the directors in program evaluation and the iterative process of training program optimization.

• Charles Stiles, PhD (Chair), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
• Humsa Venkatesh, PhD, Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Annie Hsieh, MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Nathalie Agar, PhD, Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Olga Katsovskiy, MHA, Brigham and Women's Hospital

External Advisory Board (EAB): Provides Program Administration with expertise and advice on scientific direction, trainee recruitment, and community outreach.

• Michelle Monje, MD, PhD (Chair), Stanford University
• Barbara Hempstead, MD, PhD, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medicine
• Corey Harwell, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
• Marc Freeman, PhD, OHSU Vollum Institute
• Frank Winkler, MD, PhD, University Hospital Heidelberg Germany

Recent Courses

• Cancer Neuroscience T32 Course Series 2026
• Cancer Neuroscience T32 Course Series 2024
• Cancer for Neuroscientists and Neuroscience for Cancer Biologists

Mass General Brigham is an institutional member of the Cancer Biology Training Consortium (CABTRAC).

Fellows Publications

Amick, J., Gordon, L. & Gu, C. Cellular and signalling mechanisms that regulate the blood–brain barrier. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol (2026).

Greenwald AC, Darnell NG, Hoefflin R, Simkin D, Mount CW, Gonzalez Castro LN, Harnik Y, Dumont S, Hirsch D, Nomura M, Talpir T, Kedmi M, Goliand I, Medici G, Laffy J, Li B, Mangena V, Keren-Shaul H, Weller M, Addadi Y, Neidert MC, Suvà ML, Tirosh I. Integrative spatial analysis reveals a multi-layered organization of glioblastoma. Cell. 2024 May 9;187(10):2485-2501.e26. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.03.029. Epub 2024 Apr 22. PMID: 38653236; PMCID: PMC11088502.

Kenison JE, Stevens NA, Quintana FJ. Therapeutic induction of antigen-specific immune tolerance. Nat Rev Immunol. 2024 May;24(5):338-357. doi: 10.1038/s41577-023-00970-x. Epub 2023 Dec 12. PMID: 38086932; PMCID: PMC11145724.

Mangena V, Chanoch-Myers R, Sartore R, Paulsen B, Gritsch S, Weisman H, Hara T, Breakefield XO, Breyne K, Regev A, Chung K, Arlotta P, Tirosh I, Suvà ML. Glioblastoma Cortical Organoids Recapitulate Cell-State Heterogeneity and Intercellular Transfer. Cancer Discov. 2025 Feb 7;15(2):299-315. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-23-1336. PMID: 39373549; PMCID: PMC11803396.

Liu I, Alencastro Veiga Cruzeiro G, Bjerke L, Rogers RF, Grabovska Y, Beck A, Mackay A, Barron T, Hack OA, Quezada MA, Molinari V, Shaw ML, Perez-Somarriba M, Temelso S, Raynaud F, Ruddle R, Panditharatna E, Englinger B, Mire HM, Jiang L, Nascimento A, LaBelle J, Haase R, Rozowsky J, Neyazi S, Baumgartner AC, Castellani S, Hoffman SE, Cameron A, Morrow M, Nguyen QD, Pericoli G, Madlener S, Mayr L, Dorfer C, Geyeregger R, Rota C, Ricken G, Ligon KL, Alexandrescu S, Cartaxo RT, Lau B, Uphadhyaya S, Koschmann C, Braun E, Danan-Gotthold M, Hu L, Siletti K, Sundström E, Hodge R, Lein E, Agnihotri S, Eisenstat DD, Stapleton S, King A, Bleil C, Mastronuzzi A, Cole KA, Waanders AJ, Montero Carcaboso A, Schüller U, Hargrave D, Vinci M, Carceller F, Haberler C, Slavc I, Linnarsson S, Gojo J, Monje M, Jones C, Filbin MG. GABAergic neuronal lineage development determines clinically actionable targets in diffuse hemispheric glioma, H3G34-mutant. Cancer Cell. 2024 Aug 27:S1535-6108(24)00305-2. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2024.08.006. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39232581; PMCID: PMC11865364.

Ren J, Amoozgar Z, Uccello TP, Lei PJ, Zhao Y, Ho WW, Huang P, Kardian A, Mack SC, Duda DG, Xu L, Jain RK. Targeting EPHB2/ABL1 restores antitumor immunity in preclinical models of ependymoma. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Jan 28;122(4):e2319474122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2319474122. Epub 2025 Jan 22. PMID: 39841145; PMCID: PMC11789170.

Kadowaki A, Wheeler MA, Li Z, Andersen BM, Lee HG, Illouz T, Lee JH, Ndayisaba A, Zandee SEJ, Basu H, Chao CC, Mahler JV, Klement W, Neel D, Bergstresser M, Rothhammer V, Lipof G, Srun L, Soleimanpour SA, Chiu I, Prat A, Khurana V, Quintana FJ. CLEC16A in astrocytes promotes mitophagy and limits pathology in a multiple sclerosis mouse model. Nat Neurosci. 2025 Mar;28(3):470-486. doi: 10.1038/s41593-025-01875-9. Epub 2025 Mar 3. PMID: 40033124.

T32 Training Grant in Cancer Neuroscience Request for Trainee Applications

The Neuro-Oncology Program at Harvard Cancer Consortium (HCC), the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, and the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital are seeking post-doctoral trainee applications for a T32 Training Grant in Cancer Neuroscience. This T32 program includes 30 faculty engaged in a wide scope of cancer neuroscience research across all DF/HCC institutions. Broad areas of expertise include cancer therapeutics, imaging/molecular pathology, axon biology, neuroimmunology, and neuronal microenvironment. The training program includes supervised laboratory research, coursework, regular seminars, sponsored attendance at national meetings, and presentations at an annual retreat. We are seeking applications internal to HCC as well as external applicants. The training program is open to PhD, MD, and MD/PhD candidates. At the time of award, the trainee must be a citizen of the United States, or a non-citizen national, or permanent resident (foreign nationals with student visas are not eligible).

The application deadline for a 2026 training start date is now closed. Our T32 Trainee Oversight Committee will select post-doctoral trainees for a typical training program of 2 years.

When the 2027 application period opens, applications will consist of the following components, to be submitted as single PDF document:

• Statement of research interest (1 page maximum)
• Statement of affirmation to participate in all program activities (1 paragraph maximum)
• Curriculum vitae (HMS format for all internal applicants)
• 3 letters of recommendation (at least one internal/mentor letter for internal applicants)

Applications should be submitted to Olga Katsovskiy (okatsovskiy@bwh.harvard.edu).

Program Directors

Tracy Batchelor, MD (tbatchelor@bwh.harvard.edu)
Michael Greenberg, PhD (Michael_Greenberg@hms.harvard.edu)
This program is supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32CA272386.

Trainees

Project summaries coming soon.