Ruben Carrasco received an MD in 1989 and a PhD in Biochemistry in 1993 from the University of Chile. He then completed clinical training in Anatomic Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a subspecialty fellowship in Hematopathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School (HMS), Boston, Massachusetts. During his postdoctoral work in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) under Dr. Ronald DePinho, he developed an interest in oncogenomics and the genetic modeling of murine hematologic cancers with emphasis on multiple myeloma (MM), a cancer of plasma cells. He has continued to actively pursue this research interest to this day. He is currently a hematopathologist at BWH and a research investigator at DFCI. Over the years his lab has led, or collaborated with other groups on work that has led to several important and original findings in the field, including: i) characterization of MM genomes using genome-wide array comparative genomic hybridization (a-CGH), ii) generation of a novel murine transgenic model of MM using the X-box binding protein 1 (XBP-1), iii) demonstration that the B-cell lymphoma gene (BCL9) is an oncogenic promoter of MM progression, (iv) acquisition of compelling proof-of-concept support for an innovative pharmacologic strategy to inhibit oncogenic Wnt signaling in MM via targeted disruption of BCL9/b-catenin complex, and v) demonstration that Cyclophilin A (CyPA) is a downstream transcriptional target of the Wnt/b-catenin/BCL9 complex that is secreted by bone marrow endothelial cells and promotes MM progression through via binding to CD147. He has led multi-investigator multi-institution NIH funded Program Project Grants. In 2015, he was named an Associate Professor in Pathology at BMW and HMS. He has published more than 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals, holds 4 U.S. patents, and has been an invited speaker at major international meetings devoted mainly to MM.
