Kornelia Polyak, M.D., Ph.D.

Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and a co-leader of the Dana-Farber Harvard Cancer Center Cancer Cell Biology Program. Dr. Polyak is an internationally recognized leader of breast cancer research. Her laboratory is dedicated to improving the clinical management of breast cancer patients by understanding molecular and cellular determinants of breast cancer risk and tumor evolution. Dr. Polyak has devoted much effort to develop new ways to study tumors and to apply interdisciplinary approaches. Dr. Polyak has received numerous awards including the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, the AACR Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research, and the 14th Rosalind E. Franklin Award for Women in Science. She is a recipient of the NCI Outstanding Investigator award (2015 and 2022) and received a Distinguished Alumna Award from Weil-Cornell in 2020. Dr. Polyak was elected as American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow in 2019, member of the Fellows of the AACR Academy in 2020, and to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine in 2022. She was also a recipient of the American Cancer Society Research Professor Award in 2022 and received the 2023 AACR Distinguished Lectureship in Breast Cancer Research award.