Sengupta wins $4.1 million 'Era of Hope' award for breast cancer advances

An assistant professor of medicine at Harvard has won a $4.1 million "Era of Hope" scholar award from the U.S. Defense Department's Breast Cancer Research Program in support of his cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research aimed at fighting breast and other types of cancer.

Shiladitya Sengupta, an assistant professor in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and an associate bioengineer at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said the award has transformed his plans for his year-old lab, located in the Partners Research Building on Landsdowne Street in Cambridge.

Sengupta has set about recruiting innovative thinkers in several fields, in hopes that the perspectives gained from an interdisciplinary team will lead to new ways of thinking about an old enemy: cancer.

The new hires will almost double the size of his lab, from the current four to seven. Backgrounds of those in the lab now include molecular biology, mathematics, physics, and nanotechnology.

"There's no boundaries. Everyone has to think laterally, across boundaries," Sengupta said. "You have to have an open mind to get into the lab."