David T. Ting, MD

David T. Ting, a physician scientist, cancer biologist, and bioengineer, is currently Associate Clinical Director for Innovation and a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center. He is currently an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ting’s lab works on understanding RNA expression patterns in cancer to gain biological insight into cancer progression, identify biomarkers for early detection, and to develop new therapeutic avenues against cancer. His group uses an innovative microfluidic device to capture rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of cancer patients and combines this with next generation RNA-sequencing as a “liquid biopsy” for blood based early detection biomarkers and to understand the molecular underpinnings of cancer metastasis. In addition, his group has discovered a new class of non-coding RNAs that appear important for the cancer immune response that they are now developing as a novel cancer therapeutic.

Dr. Ting received his B.S. in chemical engineering and biology from MIT in 1999, and he completed his medical degree at Harvard Medical School from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program withmagna cum laudehonors in 2004. During his undergraduate and medical school studies, he trained with Dr. Robert Langer at MIT on drug delivery platforms and did a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellowship at the Whitehead Institute at MIT working on stem cell biology with Dr. George Daley, current Dean of Harvard Medical School. He completed internal medicine residency at the MGH and medical oncology fellowship in the combined Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and MGH Cancer Center program. He moved on to post-doctoral training with Daniel Haber’s group at the MGH Cancer Center working on CTCs and novel RNA biomarkers in cancer. In addition to his passion for being at the interface of science, technology, and medicine, David is also an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan. His wife is a pediatric oncologist and they have four wonderful children.