Dr. Priscilla Brastianos is a physician-scientist and internationally recognized leader in neuro-oncology whose work has transformed the understanding and treatment of brain tumors. Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, she completed her medical degree and internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, followed by fellowship training in hematology and oncology and in neuro-oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital, and postdoctoral research at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

She is Director of the Central Nervous System Metastasis Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she leads a multidisciplinary clinic and an R01-funded laboratory. Her research program integrates molecular discovery, preclinical modeling, and clinical investigation to change care for patients with brain tumors.

In papillary craniopharyngiomas, Dr. Brastianos discovered that the vast majority harbor BRAF mutations and subsequently led the first national trial of BRAF and MEK inhibition, showing dramatic tumor shrinkage in nearly every patient. These findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, established a new standard for this tumor type and contributed to the recognition of BRAF mutations as a defining feature of papillary craniopharyngioma in the World Health Organization classification of brain tumors. She also identified key actionable drivers of meningiomas and translated these findings into the first National Cancer Institute (NCI) sponsored precision medicine trial in neuro-oncology, which demonstrated clinical activity of FAK inhibition. In brain metastases, she has defined the genomic evolution of tumors, uncovered putative drivers, and revealed how the tumor and immune microenvironment within the central nervous system evolves during therapy. Her group has developed reproducible preclinical models of brain metastases, using them to demonstrate that PI3K, KRAS, and CDK inhibition can suppress metastatic growth, findings that have directly informed clinical trials, including a national cooperative group trial.

Nationally, Dr. Brastianos serves as Co-Chair of the NCI Alliance Neuro-Oncology Committee, working with investigators across the country to ensure rigorous science is translated into new clinical trials. She has delivered more than 300 invited lectures and has been recognized with major honors including the AACR Rising Innovator Award, the American Brain Tumor Association Joel Gingras Award, the Society for Neuro-Oncology Mid-Career Exemplary Physician Award, the Anne Klibanski Award for Excellence in Mentorship, the Society for Neuro-Oncology Rare Disease Award, and the MGH Cancer Center for Research Mentorship Award.