Alejandro Gutierrez, MD
Photo: Alejandro Gutierrez

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Elected 2021

Dr. Gutierrez studied medicine at University of Pennsylvania, and was a pediatric resident at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He then completed clinical training in pediatric hematology-oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Boston Children’s Hospital. He performed postdoctoral studies in cancer biology with Dr. Thomas Look at DFCI, before joining the faculty at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gutierrez is now Associate Professor and the Louis K. Diamond Chair at Boston Children’s Hospital. He has had a longstanding interest in understanding the biology underlying treatment resistance in childhood T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). As a postdoctoral fellow, he identified genetic mutations predictive of treatment resistance in childhood T-ALL, and showed that these repress apoptotic cell death. As an independent investigator, his work has revealed novel therapeutic approaches for treatment-resistant T-ALL. Most recently, he found that inhibition of the kinase GSK3 induces a profound sensitivity to asparaginase in T-ALL. Perhaps surprisingly, this approach is equally potent in colorectal cancer. Work is ongoing to translate these findings to the clinic. In addition to his research, Dr. Gutierrez attends on the pediatric hematologic malignancies service, and serves as the Associate Program Director for Research of the BCH/DFCI Fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.