Matthew Ellis
I am a Physician Scientist dedicated to improving outcomes for patients with cancer with a focus on next gen diagnostics, target discovery and translational medicine. I was Co-leader for The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Breast Project where I established collaborations with several Genome Centers on massive parallel sequencing of breast cancer (Nature, 2010, 2012, 2012). With support from the NCI program “Specialized Program for the Evaluation of Cancer Signatures (SPECS)”, I co-developed the PAM50-based diagnostic platform which is now available as the Nanostring-based device “Prosigna” – approved in over 20 counties for the determination of prognosis in ER+ HER2- early-stage breast cancer (JCO 2009). Deepening my diagnostics/discovery experience, I was a principal investigator in the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) for over a decade. CPTAC is focused on translating proteogenomic findings into improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of common solid malignancies (Nature 2016, Nature Communications 2020, Cell 2020, Cancer Discovery 2022, Clinical Proteomics 2023). Motivated by a desire to have a greater impact and to expand my clinical impact beyond breast cancer I took the position of Senior Vice President Early Oncology at AZ in early 2022. I led a large organization focused on cancer drug development; from target identification through to Phase 2 clinical trials. In April 2024 I left AZ to start the Philanthropy-driven Institute for Proteogenomic Discovery. The vision for the institute is the generation large-scale publicly accessible digital cancer maps for biomarker and therapeutic target discovery based on proteogenomic technologies and artificial intelligence.