Matthew Boland Yurgelun

I am a Senior Physician in Medical Oncology at DFCI, an Associate Physician in Medical Oncology at BWH and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at HMS in the Clinical Innovator & Clinical Expert career path. I specialize in and devote most of my time to the care of patients with GI malignancies and patients with inherited predisposition to GI cancers. I also serve as the inaugural Director of the DFCI Lynch Syndrome Center and as Director of Clinical Research for the DFCI Division of Cancer Genetics and Prevention. The rest of my time is devoted to GI cancer genetics clinical research and teaching. I provide ambulatory care in the DFCI GI Cancer Center 1.5 days per week and in the DFCI Cancer Genetics and Prevention Clinic 1 day per week. I also provide inpatient care in Medical Oncology at BWH 2-4 weeks per year and the Gastrointestinal Oncology Consult Service 2-4 weeks per year. My clinical innovations include: (1) leadership of a DFCI initiative and participation in multiple national guideline committees regarding systematic hereditary cancer risk assessment for all patients with pancreatic cancer; and (2) directorship of the first and only multidisciplinary center in the United States dedicated to the care of individuals and families with Lynch Syndrome. I am the DFCI representative to both the NCCN Colorectal Cancer Genetics and Breast/Ovarian/Pancreatic Cancer Genetics Clinical Practice Guidelines Panels and have served on multiple ASCO committees, including the Cancer Prevention Committee and the Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee. I co-authored an ASCO Provisional Clinical Opinion on the identification of patients with inherited pancreatic cancer risk (Stoffel EM, et al. J Clin Oncol 2019) as well as multiple other editorials related to hereditary cancer risk assessment and management (Yurgelun MB, et al. Cell 2017; Yurgelun MB. J Clin Oncol 2017; Yurgelun MB and Kastrinos F. J Clin Oncol 2019; Yurgelun MB and Chan AT. Lancet 2020). I have been invited to lecture and serve as an expert discussant on hereditary GI cancer at the 2015, 2017-19, and 2021 ASCO Annual Meetings and to be a speaker/panelist and session moderator at the 2016 and 2017 DDW meetings. I have presented original research at the CGA-ICC annual meeting for 11 consecutive years, including numerous plenary session oral presentations. These projects led to multiple first-author publications, three of which are cited by the NCCN Guidelines for Colorectal Cancer High-Risk Assessment. After serving a three-year term as an elected member of the CGA-IGC Leadership Council, I was elected to serve as the society’s national President for the 2019-20 term. I was PI on projects studying multigene panel testing in patients with suspected Lynch syndrome (2014 ASCO Annual Meeting oral abstract; Gastroenterology, 2015) and in unselected patients with colorectal cancer (2016 ASCO Annual Meeting oral abstract; J Clin Oncol, 2017). In July 2016, I was awarded grants by the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center GI Cancer SPORE and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Medical Oncology Translational Grant Program to study the implementation of universal hereditary cancer risk assessment for patients with pancreatic cancer. I have been invited to present my research at the Yale University School of Medicine GI Section’s research conference series (March 2016) the Jefferson University Hospital’s Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Grand Rounds (February 2017), and the University of Rochester’s Wilmot Cancer Institute (June 2017). Over the past three years, I have given more than 20 lectures locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally on my work in inherited gastrointestinal cancer genetics. Most recently, I submitted an R01 grant application to the NCI in October 2021 proposing to study a novel form of communicating personalized inherited cancer risk estimates in individuals with Lynch syndrome. I have been involved with various patient-facing efforts regarding inherited cancer risk. I have co-led the DFCI LYNKED IN Lynch syndrome patient and family conference for the past 4 years, including the 2021 conference which was attended by Lynch syndrome patients from 33 U.S. states and 18 countries. I was also invited to give a keynote talk at the 2021 Facing Our Risk for Cancer Empowered (FORCE) hereditary cancer patient advocacy conference and was elected to serve on the FORCE Board of Directors in 2021. Regarding teaching, in addition to my supervisory roles with Fellows and Residents in the ambulatory setting and with Physician Assistants and Internal Medicine Housestaff in inpatient care, I have mentored multiple trainees in clinical cancer genetics research over the past three years, including Dr. Leah Biller who was recently hired to the DFCI faculty as well as Dr. Connie Zhong, a resident in the Harvard Combined Dermatology Program. I have also given lectures to trainees of various levels at DFCI, BWH, and HMS on a spectrum of topics related to gastrointestinal oncology and inherited cancer risk. Education 2002 AB Biophysical Chemistry Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 2006 MD Medicine Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY Editorial Activities: American Journal of Gastroenterology British Journal of Cancer British Journal of Surgery Cancer Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention Cancer Prevention Research Clinical Cancer Research Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology Critical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology European Journal of Human Genetics Familial Cancer Gastroenterology Genetics in Medicine Gut Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Oncology Journal of Clinical Oncology JCO Precision Oncology Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network New England Journal of Medicine PLoS One The Oncologist Honors and Prizes: 2002 Cum laude Dartmouth College 2006 Herbert J. Bartelstone Award Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Excellence in Pharmacology 2019 Top Reviewer JCO Precision Oncology