Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH

Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, is chief of the Division of Breast Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA. She also serves as associate director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers, is a senior physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, also in Boston.

Dr Tolaney received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University in Princeton, NJ, and her medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco. She subsequently completed her residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University, and fellowships in hematology and medical oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She obtained her master in public health degree from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

She is internationally recognized for her research and education leadership in breast cancer. Her research focuses on the development of novel therapies in the treatment of breast cancer and the development of more effective and less toxic treatment approaches. Dr Tolaney's work has demonstrated that a relatively low-risk regimen is beneficial in women with early-stage node- and HER2+ cancers, and this work has been incorporated into national and international guidelines. She has developed several follow-up studies looking at novel approaches to early-stage HER2+ disease and has played a significant role in the development of cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 inhibitors, antibody-drug conjugates, and immunotherapy in breast cancer. Dr Tolaney currently chairs several registration studies in these areas and leads numerous investigator-initiated trials. Finally, she is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, with manuscripts included in prestigious journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet Oncology, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and JAMA Oncology.